Because Tyler's a Stupid Name
by AnOctoberPepper
Summary: AU- Lily Potter died less than two weeks ago, so when her idiot younger brother shows up on Severus's front porch holding Harry and pleading for a babysitter Severus may just get pulled into an agreement that could change everything.
1. Chapter 1: A Knock at the Door

_A/N- I promise I have nothing against the name Tyler. In fact I like it enough that I named a character Tyler. The title just encapsulated the relationship well and it's a quote from the story. So, sorry..._

* * *

Severus replaced his spoon into his can of cold soup. It was a revolting congealed glob, but it was food, or a close approximation. What he wanted was a large Hogwarts meal, warm rolls and plates of succulent meat followed by desserts that were sweet enough to rot one's teeth on contact, but that wasn't to be. At least not until next year, Severus thought bitterly to himself. Dumbledore wanted him to take old Slughorn's position after he retired at the end of the year. The Headmaster had just mentioned it the day before. Severus was to come by the school a few times a week to be trained to take the position, and he wasn't looking forward to it. Dumbledore however wanted to babysit him and that would be easier if he were right under the old man's broken nose.

Severus sulked as he kneeled down on the floor, set the can of food aside and began to rummage through the next box of books he had carted from his last home in London. He had, against his better judgment, returned to Spinner's End. He couldn't decide how much he disliked this arrangement, but his parents had left the house to him, and now that the Dark Lord had fallen he had no connections and no chance of keeping an income, at least not until the brutal discrimination against those who had been on trial for connected crimes ended.

Severus checked the binding on his Advanced Potions books, setting them in order, then slipped them onto the shelf closest to the floor. The higher up shelves were already full and he hadn't had a chance to clear them out or reorganize them. Under the Advanced Potions books the box held some of his Defense Against the Dark Arts books. He wanted them on a higher shelf. He looked up for space but his search was cut short by a sudden rapping on the door.

He didn't look up; no one stopping by his home would be welcomed. They were either looking for his parents or looking for someone who no longer existed; Severus the Hogwarts Student or Severus the Death Eater. Now he was just Severus the pet of Albus Dumbledore, and no one visited that. He pulled a few potions ingredients and a few small notebooks from the box. He sighed, put the ingredients back into the box and levitated it to the kitchen. The rapping on the door happened again, this time more insistent, followed by someone desperately calling out his first name. The voice struck Severus as familiar, distant and from a dream, but he couldn't place it. Instead he dropped the box on the counter, walked back to the living room and pulled another box toward himself. This one was similarly filled with books, but darker ones, one that would have been shuffled to the restricted section of the Hogwarts Library, but would fit into the Spinner's End library quite nicely. The knocking turned to fist pounding and still Severus ignored it.

"Severus, please? I heard your parents died, they gave you the house? I guess? Are you here? Sev!" Severus looked up from his work and blinked slowly at the door as the fist pounding turned to knob rattling. Who would know that information? Few Death Eaters knew or cared who his parents were, fewer Hogwarts students did. None would call him "Sev".

The voice sent ice shivering down his spine. Why was the voice so familiar, why was it making him so cold?

"Severus, I need your help, please just open the door." There was pounding again, heavy, imploring. The voice was joined with a few muffled cries, high pitched and angry. Severus flinched, feeling as if he had been burned. Those were the cries of a baby. He bolted to his feet and retreated into his kitchen, as far away from the front door as he could be.

His body knew who was at the door, even if his mind hadn't caught up. He could still hear the pounding and he was backed as far into the counter as he could be without climbing onto it. He shut his eyes and tried to block out the sound of Lily Evan's younger brother, and surely her son, at his front door. What were they doing here? Why!?

 _Lily stumbled as she dashed out of the row of trees near her home in Cokeworth. Severus was on her heals and he heard a laugh erupt from her as they tumbled onto the green grass. She rolled over and looked back into the trees. Severus watched her green eyes for a moment then turned back to the tree line. Tyler should have been rushing out after them, short, and tripping over the roots as he chased._

 _"Where is he then?" Severus wondered sitting up. Lily slowly stood again. This was the first time the boy had been allowed to follow them on one of their adventures after years of begging. They weren't particularly pleased. Severus tried to convince her to ditch him in the forest but Lily had been adamant that they keep an eye on him. The boy was barely five and hero-worshiped Severus. She wouldn't leave him behind._

 _"I don't know, I heard him a second ago." Lily sighed putting her small fists on her hips. Severus squinted into the underbrush. Something small and uncoordinated stumbled out from between two tall maple trees._

 _"That was crazy." It huffed kicking some brambles off its leg and stumbling over to Severus and Lily. "Where are we going now!?" It asked, beaming at Severus. Severus glared down at it with his dark eyes, but the child was completely undeterred. His smile was that of a naïve trusting puppy, his eyes doubly so, green and sparkling. Severus growled up at the indifferent grey sky._

 _"Tyler where were you." Lily asked spinning the kid toward her._

 _"There was a thing and branches, and then there was a… a thing from the sky and sparklers and ." He panted and Lily squinted over at Severus. He could guess he was in trouble, but it was only a few sparks and some lifted roots. The kid was really annoying after all! He looked sheepish as Tyler continued trying to explain to Lily where he was with his unsophisticated verbal skills. The boy was an idiot, but unlike the other idiots in the world he was completely and utterly unafraid of Severus Snape._

 _"Did you see 'um?" He asked Severus._

 _"Huh?"_

 _"Tha lizerds!" Tyler repeated enthusiastically._

 _He glared but then Lily gave him a look and he grudgingly answered, "I did not see the lizards." as clearly and pointedly as he could manage. The boy's eyes grew wide with excitement that an older boy had spoken directly to him._

 _"Come on Lily maybe we should just take him home." He said pleading with his eyes. Before he could finish his statement though, something slammed into his stomach and wrapped around his waist. The child was pleading something into his shirt. He couldn't make out what, but he could feel the vibrations of words being yelled into his grubby second hand excuse for clothing. Severus looked like he had been stung as he tried to escape the embrace. Lily was trying to pull her brother off._

 _"Can I stay, can I stay!" The boy begged through a mouthful of t-shirt._

 _"Come on Tyler, get off."_

 _"Moss! Release me." Severus growled, unclasping the kid's fingers from behind his back and pushing him toward Lily. She had one of his arms held up in the air and the boy had the disappointed, left-at-home look on his face again. "Want to walk him home with me?" Lily asked as she started walking in the direction of her home. Her smile from earlier had turned into a frown. Severus shrugged and followed, not because he wanted to spend more time with Tyler, but because he didn't want to go home yet. His father would have just gotten back, and would be yelling about dinner for another hour. If he waited long enough the man might fall asleep and then Severus could sneak in without having to hear a word from him that day. He tagged along behind the pair. Tyler was swinging around still being held tight by Lily. He twisted around backward to smile at Severus then ducked and picked up a rock, a twig, poked a bug on the ground. He asked several times if Severus could make a leaf change colors like he had a few weeks before. Severus grumbled that he couldn't but, inevitably, Tyler would ask for him to perform some small act of magic every time he passed another flower, or patch of leaves_

 _Severus had just said "no" to giving an ant wings when Tyler finally asked. "Why'd you call me Moss all tha time?"_

 _Severus sneered and said, "Because Tyler's a stupid name." Severus understood this was the perfect opportunity for the boy to reply that, "Severus" was a stupid name, but the child didn't take the bait._

 _"Tyler's my name." The boy pointed out instead, as if Severus were talking about some other Tyler._

 _"I know."_

 _"Don't say mean things Severus." Lily requested, slowing down and frowning at her friend. Severus sighed, not wanting to make Lily upset by insulting her little brother._

 _"Fine. I call you Moss because your sisters both have plant names and I thought it was strange that you didn't." Severus admitted. This was the true story, Lily knew. They had discussed it after he found out Lily had a younger brother as well as a stiff older sister._

 _"That's because I was a mistake baby." Tyler said brightly, as if this were some type of compliment and not, as Severus knew he himself was, a disaster and a disappointment. Severus made a face._

 _"You can call me Moss though." The boy decided. "I like it."_

 _Of course he liked it, thought Severus, the boy likes everything and everyone. He was hopeless._

"Severus I need your help, you're all I have left." Severus's legs buckled under him. It had only been a week and a half really. Since Lily had died, only a week and a half. He swallowed a lump in his throat.

Stupid kid! Stupid kid. What was he doing here, and why did he have to bring the baby? Outside the knocking had stopped, but in its place was the disturbing sound of a body falling against the door. Tyler Evans didn't sound like he was on a social call. They hadn't spoken since the Christmas before Harry was born. Severus assumed Lily had finally bucked up and told him what he was, either that or one of those boys had slipped it to him. As much as Severus didn't want to admit it, them telling the kid he was a Death Eater was one of the worst tricks they could have played on him. But he wouldn't admit that, not even to himself. He couldn't. Tyler Evans was an idiot, and Severus didn't want him around when he was five, and he surely didn't want him around now.

Severus tentatively walked back into the living room. The knocking had ceased, though someone was still on the other side of the door. He could hear the creak of the hinges every few seconds, but Tyler had stopped talking.

Severus picked up his sad dinner and took another bite. Time had not helped the flavor. He swallowed back the cold blob and glared at the door. The doorknob rattled, and something slapped the wood, pathetically. Maybe the boy was giving up? Severus stood there for another three painful bites, waiting for the sound to totally subside. There were a few scrapes and shuffling. The body pushed away from the door, and eventually a voice spoke, barely loud enough for Severus to hear.

"Severus, The light's on. I… I saw a shadow move so if you're in there. Sev, if you're in there, Listen. I know what they said about you. I can't believe it. Not totally. I trust you. I trust you because I have to because there is no one, and I mean no one else who I can trust right now. I trust you. I always have, even when Lily forbid me to see you. Things, well. Things got scary and everyone got suspicious, and we saw how that turned out, but listen I need help…"

Severus took in a deep breath of air.

"I have Harry." There was a nervous pause. "I know you know that, listen. I can't. I can't watch him tonight, for." He took in another deep breath. "You know I'm an idiot. You've always known I'm an idiot, so just." There was another rattle on the doorknob but this one was frustrated and ended with a loud slam against the door that rattled the diploma Severus had hung from the wall. There was quiet crying and Tyler paused in his efforts to get Severus to open the door, to calm the child.

Severus placed the spoon back into what remained of his soup. The kid trusted him after everything, after Sirius's betrayal, and his sister's death. The boy still found it in him to show up to a Death Eater's porch with the child they had tried to kill in his arms.

"Severus." The voice called again, through the door. Severus quietly set the can of soup onto an overcrowded dark wood coffee table. It wouldn't hurt to hear him out at least, maybe let him get the child out of the cold night air. He stood frozen for a moment, surprised he was even considering this, but he had to.

Severus stepped over the box he had been organizing earlier and steadied himself. What was he thinking, what was he doing? He watched numbly as his hand reached out and unlocked the door, then the deadbolt, then he fished his wand out of a pocket and undid a few more security spells. The boy must be waiting with baited breath because there was no sound coming from the other side of the door. Severus steeled himself, put up a mask of indifference and slowly opened the door.

His dark hair was a ratty mess, his skin pasty and were those new scars on his cheek? The flannel shirt he wore over a dirty band t-shirt had two buttons fastened, and those were lopsided. Severus stared at the boy. He had been sturdy as a child, completely unfazed by life, by people. He was unrelentingly optimistic and shameless. Severus tried to find hints of that boy on the face of the person standing in front of him. Was there a trace of it in laugh lines, or in the way he stood? Not really. What he saw now was a frightened 19-year-old shivering in the November air as he curled himself around a sleeping child.

Severus sighed. He would help the man in front of him, because he would have helped the boy who had followed him and Lily around, the boy who had learned magic tricks and smiled every time he saw him, even after Lily had broken off everything with him. He would do it for that.

"Come in." Severus whispered stepping back and holding the door open. Tyler almost ran over the threshold, stumbling, but breathing out in relief. He looked white as a sheet and shivered on clearly weak footing.

"Thank you." The boy stood, disbelieving, just inside the living room, shock on his face as he took in his new surroundings.

"Could I offer you some tea?" Severus offered dryly, shutting the door.

Tyler shook his head. "I need to go very soon." He exhaled. "Here." Tyler untangled Harry from his shoulder and made to hand him over. Severus's stomach jumped into his throat and he backed into the door bumping his head violently on the frame.

"What?" He panicked, flinching away from the child. Tyler pulled Harry back into himself and glanced toward the covered window.

"I need you to watch him for the night. Just the night. I swear, I'll be back by noon tomorrow." Tyler fidgeted with his bottom lip, betraying fear. "He's a good kid. He sleeps through the night." Tyler looked sheepish. "He used to sleep through the nights." He corrected in a mumble. There were deep purple circles under Tyler's eyes, Severus noticed.

"You want me to watch Potter's baby?" Severus spat, regaining his footing both physically and verbally. He glared at the sleeping baby.

Tyler looked confused. "No." His face scrunched. "I want you to watch Harry. Lily and James's baby…" he flustered then added. "I _really_ need this."

Severus shook his head and quickly darted around Tyler and into the kitchen. As he always used to, the boy followed behind.

"You can't honestly be saying 'no' because of James? Harry's just as much Lily's if not more. Just look at him. Look at his eyes for God's sake, he's got her eyes!" Tyler pleaded. Severus refused to look at the kid. He knew what Lily's eyes looked like and he didn't want reminding. Tyler looked at Severus appearing utterly bewildered and just a bit unhinged. Not angry or hurt, because he wasn't sure Tyler knew how to be those things, he just looked stunned.

Severus wondered if Tyler was even mad at Sirius for his betrayal or if he looked at the situation with the same wide-eyed wonder he was giving him now. "I know you don't like kids but I have to leave him on your couch if you don't take him." Tyler said slowly pulling Harry back into himself. "I can't take him with me, but I promise I'll be back for him at noon tomorrow." Tyler walked back into the living room. Severus didn't want to follow at first, but the curiosity eventually got to him. This optimistic child was just dropping a baby off, he was just doing it!

Tyler was slowly placing Harry onto a sturdy place in the couch and used a rolled up throw blanket to pin him in. "Um… at least make sure he doesn't roll off, right?" Tyler asked, his voice cracking a bit as he stood and faced Severus. "I know you haven't said yes yet, but I know you will, you're a good person… so his food is in that bag, and so are his diapers, I figure you have some spell for that, and if he's crying just hold him up to you and rock, he likes that and anything Quidditch related is his best friend. I left him his stuffed quaffle in his bag, he loves to play with that. . ." Tyler trailed off, not knowing what else to say. Severus felt a bit overwhelmed by the wall of instructions, and Tyler was looking like he was leaving his own arm with Severus. He kept reaching for his collarbone as if something was missing from that place.

"Um if I'm not back by noon for some reason, just drop him off. Oh." Tyler reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. That's the address, and you can reach it by floo with that password." He pointed to the words on the page. "It's pretty protected at this point, but that'll get you through. I think that's everything." Tyler nodded and thanked him breathlessly. Severus blinked up at him. And the similarity to the child Severus once knew suddenly became very obvious. It was in the way he had called on him. His lack of fear in the face of someone his sister had called enemy. His inherent trust in the goodness of people, and his belief, deep down that people would love him as much as he loved them.

Nonetheless, No!

No! He was not going to take this child for the night! What was Tyler thinking, what was going on? Before his mouth could catch up, however, Tyler was frantically looking around the room and rushing out the door again. "I'll see you tomorrow." He called as he hopped off the porch step and dashed to the street, not looking back.

Severus looked down at the sheet of paper in his hand; 614 Grove St. Password: Password. "The boy is an idiot." Severus said to himself, "and why would he need a babysitter for only one night?" The scrawny child wasn't a huge ladies man, if his youth was anything to go by. Apparently muggle girls weren't into boys who did magic tricks and read inordinate numbers of fantasy novels. He also wasn't fit enough for some secret muggle government organization. Severus watched the boy fumble up the street to the nearest bus stop before looking up at the rising night sky. It would be a full moon that night, good for brewing powerful potions he realized before a second heavier thought hit him, "Werewolf." He whispered remembering the new scars on the boy's pale face. "That boy is definitely an idiot." Severus reasoned aloud and he looked over to the couch where James's child had just blinked its eyes open and lifted its tiny feet high into the air. Did it want something? Severus stepped over and looked down. Brilliant green eyes stared back.

"Shit." Was all he said as he realized he had been suckered in.


	2. Chapter 2: Harry

_A/N- I wrote the first chapter thinking "This is a cute one-shot maybe I'll write more if I have time", but thanks to some delightful encouragement here's chapter 2._

 _Also I graduated from college months ago, but writing one line of a pretend academic book for this chapter almost gave me hives. If it sounds pathetic it's because I was trying not to cry before the sentence was over._

* * *

"Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect Lily Evan's son". Dumbledore's words pounded in Severus's ears, but somehow he hadn't expected this to be one of his acts of protection.

Harry didn't want food, or his Quaffle- both fretfully levitated to him from a safe distance. He wouldn't sleep and Severus, grudgingly, came to realize he didn't need his diaper changed. So they were at a stand off, the small version of James (with Lily's eyes) cried from the couch while Severus stood on the other side of the room staring at it in the same way he would stare at an angry Hippogriff; A mix of terror and awe. Who would do this to themselves? Create a smaller, noisier, uncommunicative…version of themselves! Severus plugged his ears but it did little to quiet the sound. The crying rose and fell in waves of angry wails and, still, he had no clue how to get himself out of the situation.

I could take it to someone else, Severus briefly considered. There had to be someone he knew who could help him with a baby. The Malfoys had one about this age. Lucius had once shown him a picture of platinum blond baby eating something that looked like lumpy orange paint. Unfortunately the Malfoys would smother Harry right off and if they didn't Dumbledore would find out he had contacted a Death Eater family and he would be in more trouble than he could possibly imagine. He wasn't sure how, but he knew Dumbledore would find out and finish him off. He wasn't that valuable yet.

Severus took a shuddered breath and tried to tune out the sound once again.

It wasn't working.

He swallowed back the lump in his throat and walked across the room. Harry was screaming up at him, red-faced and twitching. Was that what it was when babies flailed around with little control over their tiny limbs, twitching? Harry quieted for a brief second at the sight of his face but Severus could see another wail under the surface. "Okay Severus, you can do this." He rolled up the sleeves of his black, long-sleeved shirt. This was the one thing he hadn't tried yet, "Rock him." Tyler had said. How hard could it be, you had to manually shake certain potions to get the proper reaction, this must be the same general principal. Severus took in a breath as if about to jump from the astronomy tower and reached out. Harry screamed his loudest squeal yet and Severus jumped backward, running into the coffee table and tumbling ungracefully to the floor. "Mother- Merlin damn-" Severus started several curse words as he untangled himself from his half-empty boxes and shot back onto his feet.

James Potter seemed to be tormenting him from the grave with this child and Harry was still screaming. "Shut Up!" Severus yelled from the other side of the coffee table. The sudden noise seemed to halt Harry in his tracks and he quieted briefly. Severus could feel a pounding in his head where the screaming had been. He felt like he was in a vacuum, in a moment of stopped time. "What do you want?" He asked, briefly wondering if occlumency worked on babies. If it did, he didn't want to try it, especially on one that survived a killing curse.

Severus shut his eyes, enjoying the quiet before- there it was- a quiet hiccup of a cry, a whine. Before Harry could fly into another bought of screaming Severus angrily stepped onto his coffee table then onto the floor before the baby and picked him up in one swift, courageous, movement.

Harry curled around him and Severus choked for a brief moment, not from the strength of the child but from the feeling of having another human so near him. His small arms were wrapped around his neck, his wet cheek pressed against his unshaven one.

Harry was still quiet, and Severus breathed out, relieved, then breathed in. Shock hit him like a train. Harry smelled… well he smelled like Lily if he had to describe it. There was something about his clothes, maybe a certain laundry detergent that wasn't Mrs. Scower's Best Laundry Cleaning Potions. It was a muggle scent, surely something that Tyler used to clean his clothes. Severus inhaled greedily once more, his eyes watering without his control.

Severus cursed when he realized the stone pressing on his heart wasn't Harry's small knee and pulled Harry away from himself, terrified. He held him out at arms length facing away from himself so he couldn't see his eyes, only his scruffy head of black hair, and walked him around the room. Severus lasted about a minute before his arms grew tired and he had to pull the boy in again. Harry didn't seem particularly pleased about his current situation, but he had stopped crying, and wasn't gearing up for another round. Severus chanced lying him on the couch again.

If it was possible for a one-year-old to glare, Harry was glaring. But he was glaring quietly so Severus sat himself down on the couch next to him and pulled over a book, ignoring the child's anger. Harry's happiness wasn't his problem. He opened the defense theory tome to page 134 and continued reading where he had left off the day before. A minute later Harry screeched something up at him. Severus assumed it was a word, but he couldn't understand which one. He didn't look over to see if something was bothering the child and instead read the same line six more times, trying to pull his mind away from his small companion. "Moo-y."

"I have no idea what that means." Severus intoned, not looking away from his book.

"Moo-y."

"That doesn't change the circumstances."

Harry insisted though, "Moo-y." Severus slammed his book shut loudly and glared over at Harry. The small child's face crinkled into sadness and Severus could sense the coming storm. He flustered angrily and scooted away, opening his book again and praying his farther proximity might change the child's mind about crying.

It did not.

Harry's wailing started again, and as his only defense against the noise Severus read as loudly as he could from the book in front of him, trying to make his own voice drown out Harry's tears.

Harry's crying grew louder and so did Severus's reading until the room was a cacophony of noise.

Severus yelled out the last line of the chapter, then simply groaned and tossed the book to the side falling forward and resting his arms on his knees. This shouldn't be so upsetting! He shouldn't care whether a child was crying or not! He could just set up a silencing charm and sleep it out, he realized- but the plan felt hollow in his chest. Harry wailed and Severus knew that having to listen to this child crying was… he would have to admit it… some type of penance for… for what he inadvertently did to his parents. Severus looked up from the floor and over at Harry. "He used to sleep through the night." He mumbled to himself repeating what Tyler had said earlier that night. He slipped off the couch and onto his knees. Harry was crying slightly softer now that Severus had stopped yelling. With a second look it seemed the boy was more tired than mad. He would rub his small eyes with the back of his chubby hands as tears trickled down his cheeks.

"I let your mum and dad get killed." Severus whispered, not feeling relieved by the admission. Harry clearly didn't understand the confession, "and your idiot uncle dropped you on my couch." He added with irritation when Harry just stared at him uncomprehending. Severs looked down at the floor, and to his surprise Harry quieted. Severus looked up and watched green eyes check him out. They wandered to his hopelessly greasy hair, his dusty black shirt then to his face, his thin lips, his long nose until they met his dark eyes. Harry placed a comforting hand in his own mouth and coughed out the last of his tears. "I _am_ sorry." Severus admitted quietly.

Harry kicked out, still watching Severus's eyes closely. "Moo-y." He said around his fingers. Severus wanted to sigh in exasperation, but the boy _was_ giving him a hint; His eyes wandered to the book Severus had tossed aside. Severus followed the look and squinted in confusion. He reached out and pulled the book over to himself. He held up the gruesome cover for the boy to see. Harry kicked and for the first time, almost smiled.

"Moo-y?" Severus asked dryly. Harry kicked and cooed happily. One of Severus's eyebrows rose and he slowly opened the book, holding it out this time so Harry could see the stylized handwriting on each page. He read a few words out loud then checked Harry's reaction. The boy's eyes were locked on the object.

"Defense Theory is an ancient and important aspect of self preservation and has been intricately crafted by hundreds, if not thousands of hands throughout its history." Severus continued and Harry watched him, enraptured. Severus swallowed, confused. "Okay, so Moo-y is reading, and reading shuts you up?" Severus asked nervously. Harry slurred something incomprehensible around the fingers he was chewing on. "Reading it is then." Severus agreed and turned back to the book.

* * *

It was 1 in the morning by the time they were both asleep, Harry on the couch and Severus on the floor, his face pressed into the binding of the book left lying on the couch at Harry's feet.

Though Severus was awake at 6, shocked and confused about where he was, the baby didn't wake again until 8. Severus nervously fed him a bottle, holding it by the very end as Harry judged him. He almost successfully changed a diaper (The new one was loose and lopsided but acceptable), handed the boy his quaffle and spent the rest of the morning staring nervously at the clock waiting for the arrival of the boy's guardian.

He didn't come. Not at Noon, not at 1 after Severus was forced to feed Harry again, this time with a piece of bread he found in his kitchen. He waited, attempted to distract the toddling boy from eating his books and breaking into his cabinets and boxes by turning on the radio, holding his quaffle just out of his reach and generally did everything in his power to keep him from screaming.

It was the hardest morning of Severus's life so by 1:30, as little as Severus wanted to visit Tyler's home, he wanted to keep they boy less. He wrapped the child in the blanket from his couch to keep him from wiggling and stepped into the floo.

They stumbled into the living room of a tiny suburban home. Severus coughed out dust and brushed it off both himself and Harry. "Moss!" He called.

There was no reply.

Severus set Harry on his feet, handed him his quaffle and walked out of the living room and into a kitchen and dining room. "Moss! Where are you then?" He called again. Severus's stomach was sinking, thinking that Lily's exhausted brother had dropped the boy on his porch and fled the country. Not that it mattered; Tyler's instructions were to leave Harry in the living room if he wasn't back by noon. Severus paused and considered leaving. Would there be consequences? Was this something he had secretly signed up for when Dumbledore had asked him to protect Lily's son? A thousand thoughts and worries flicked through his mind before he grudgingly decided he couldn't just leave the boy, so instead he checked the upstairs bedrooms and the kitchen and the bathrooms. Nothing. No sign of Lily Evan's muggle of a little brother.

He was about to head back to the living room where Harry was surely getting himself into trouble when he heard coughing emanating from somewhere in the house. It was a frustrating search. The house was too small for secrets and there were certainly better things he could be doing with his time than chasing a hint of a noise. But still, duty and a scratch of curiosity drew him to tap his wand against walls and cabinets looking for a hidden space.

After ten minutes, with luck, a crack appeared along the edge of a wall that should have lead to an under-stair closet, if anything. Severus tapped his wand again muttering a second revealing spell and watched as the tan wall shimmered and melted away to reveal a sturdy wooden door. He pulled at a few manual locks and opened the door onto a dark stairwell. There was another cough, this one louder, and definitely from the bottom of the staircase.

He stepped down onto a bouncing wooden step, lit his wand and looked down. At the bottom was another door, this one heavy iron. Severus's stomach sank realizing his guess from the night before was more than a passing fear. He tugged the edge of his sleeve nervously then with determination reminded himself that the full moon had set hours ago, that there was nothing to fear if there _was_ a werewolf hidden behind the door. His next thought thought was then- what happens if there isn't a werewolf behind the door? What happens if it's just Tyler? His brain involuntarily shot forward images of Lupin; tired, cold and nursing a limp or a sling once a month. If Tyler looked weak and pale the night before, how would he look now after being trapped with himself inside a closed cellar for a full night? Severus involuntarily stepped back into the light of the living room. "Werewolf" he repeated, low and pondering. He had walked into a dark tunnel leading to a werewolf once before. That day hadn't ended as poorly as it could have, but it hadn't ended the way he had intended.

Behind him, still standing at the coffee table, slowly tearing apart a newspaper, Harry chirped something indistinct. He babbled and chucked the sports section onto the floor. Quidditch players scattered out of their picture for safer photos. Severus didn't stop to wonder how the muggle was still receiving the Daily Profit, or why, because, at that moment, a second voice joined in the nonsensical babbling. This voice was a deeper one that was trying desperately to speak from the other side of the iron door at the bottom of the steps. None of the words were clear.

Severus felt trapped.

Behind him was a boy who he would have to watch over if he called someone to deal with the boy down the stairs. But surely if the Ministry, or St. Mungo's knew Tyler was a werewolf Harry would be moved, so was it really an option at all? Severus's mind wandered to Petunia Evans…

Severus looked back and forth between the two options before he gritted his teeth and decided that nothing could possibly be in the basement that would be worse than what he had seen amongst the Death Eaters. In fact, a few cuts and bruises would be a tame exercise in torture among some of the Dark Lord's more enthusiastic followers.

Severus righted himself with a sneer for both himself and the others then moved swiftly down the soft wet stairs and to the iron door. All the bolts were manual, built for a muggle, but not a wolf, to maneuver. Severus unlocked them with a quick alohomora, slid his hand up the side until he found a lever and pulled. The door released easily and he pushed inward into the cellar. The room wasn't much bigger than a cell with concrete floors and thick concrete block walls. There was a thin stream of green-tinted light coming in from an algae covered window set high in the wall leading to the small back garden. Severus followed the beam down to the wall to where Tyler had propped himself, then clearly slipped sideways.

Severus's heart tried to stop. It tried to wrangle into something he didn't recognize, but he growled inwardly and shoved everything behind the wall he had built for this type of situation. "Where's Harry. Wow, it's flipping cold down here. Harry…Like really cold. I hav. I hav to get Harry." Severus knew Tyler wasn't speaking to him, his eyes were completely unfocussed, but he could clearly hear the toddler's chattering from above, because he reacted every time Harry made a loud noise.

Severus had to judge the situation; it was the simplest way to remain impartial. To be planned, calculated.

Tyler was pale, he noted, he was actually rather green in this light. There was an easy solution for that. Severus produced a ball of light into his hand and set it afloat into the center of the room. The spell would hold for a short amount of time.

Tyler was bloody. Severus's brain desperately stored his feelings on the far side of the wall. "He's bloody." He repeated to himself, creating a list. He's bruised, several black and blue marks were appearing around his bared ribs and arms. He's pale under the blood and thinner than a rail. He may be dehydrated and even feverish.

Severus counted up the injuries as he crossed the room.

Tyler was aware of the movement. His eyelids flickered open slightly more as he tried to find out what was going on. Severus watch him carefully as he crouched down next to the bloody, slumped figure, not worried that his sullied robes would now be covered in an extra layer of grime. Tyler flipped himself upwards, fell heavily backward against the wall and met Severus's eyes.

Green.

Severus panicked and looked down to the bruises covering the boy's chest. Tyler's continued chain of mumbled words changed ever so slightly. He was anxious about something and was desperately tying to tell Severus what. He jerked a few times and tried to sit up straighter with no real control. Severus could hear his refrain was still Harry's name. It took a few moments but eventually Tyler began fighting to get to his feet. His legs, only covered in boxers were pasty and shaking under his meager weight. He couldn't get his legs under him, let alone rise to a standing position. Severus, with little effort pulled Tyler back into a sitting position and looked up enough to stare at his mouth, chapped and still moving. Severus reached out a hand and covered it. He couldn't think with all the noise. He couldn't come up with a plan for how to save this moron. The touch only worked to alert Severus to the fever he had guessed about since Tyler's lips were still moving, undeterred.

Severus wanted to curse, he really did. He was digging himself deeper into this hole. He was now not only watching Harry, but also watching the boy who had dropped him off. His eyes shrunk to slits and he could feel anger bubbling in him. Why did Tyler call on him? What was he thinking? What was wrong with him? How the hell did he get into this situation and why did Dumbledore hand Harry to him? He blustered and fumed until Tyler's mouth stopped trying to move against his hand. Severus centered himself and asked the simplest, most polite question he could manage, "Do you think you are going to live through this?" He bit out. If Tyler could live, Severus could leave.

Tyler rolled his head until his eyes met Severus's and for the first time since he'd come to the basement Tyler was truly looking at him. It took everything in him to look back without feeling a stab of pain in his heart. Then he remembered, Tyler knew how to interact with him, he knew all his buttons, just as Lily had. A warm smile tried to move onto Tyler's face as Severus uncovered his mouth. The boy slurred, "Pick a card, any card." It was a hark back to the boy's favorite trick, a game of calculated chance, where Tyler always won. Severus stared, bewildered that the boy could come up with that answer in his state. "Also I may be bleeding." Tyler added mock-seriously, looking down at a bleeding scrape on his leg as if it were an alien creature. Severus almost laughed, the boy's reaction was too absurd, but he couldn't laugh at a time like this, not when he was so furious! A smile pricked the edge of his lips anyway a he couldn't press away the image of the boy who used to stumble out of the woods after bing tripped by trees and chased by sparks, smiling and babbling about "lizerds!"

Tyler saw the almost smile and Severus could have kicked himself for letting it show. Tyler coughed and tried to smile back through his obvious pain. When he could breath again he asked in a wheeze, "You took care of Harry then?" and the best Severus could manage was a disbelieving scoff before Tyler's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he slumped to the side.

The last thing Tyler felt before he blacked out was a hand catching him before he hit the cold concrete.


	3. Chapter 3: You miss her too

_A/N - I'm flattered and amused by all the favs and Followers. Thanks for the sweet reviews from delenda est c, geetac, and harvestmoonfanatic123. I'm glad you're all enjoying. :)_

* * *

"I don't like it." Alastor Moody didn't like much of anything, Dumbledore knew, so he smiled from behind his desk, but didn't reply as the auror paced across the Headmaster's office. "The boy's nineteen, Albus."

"And capable."

"And absolutely ridiculous."

"Have you met him?" Dumbledore questioned with a raised eyebrow. Moody simply scowled at him. They had met, Dumbledore knew, once or twice, when the man was unfortunate enough to run into him at the Potter's first home in London. They had bought it straight out of school for the express purpose of housing not only themselves but Lily's orphaned younger brother, and Remus Lupin as well. They had all moved out about two years later leaving the home to the boy.

"I know enough from what the- " Moody paused on the word. After two weeks it was still painful to say it, still painful to think of them as a group, as a single word instead of the shattered remains of a family. "-What the marauder's used to tell me about him." He let the sentence hang in the air, as Dumbledore contemplated the ceiling, then his folded hands.

"I believe I made the correct decision in his placement, for the time being." He finally said.

"What about Lily's sister?" Moody grumbled.

"She would not have been as good of a choice." Dumbledore protested, "From my understanding she has certain negative opinions of the magical world."

"All the better! You've met the boy. He is-"  
"He is a little too enthusiastic, but caring, and devoted. He would have made quite the Hufflepuff if he had taken after his second sister. Hogwarts lost a great gift in him." Moody narrowed his eyes, harrumphed and crossed the room to the window. He pried it open and screamed out the window at a pair of students jinxing a third. They looked about them confused, then scattered when they saw the scarlet Auror robes hanging around the grizzled man in the window.

"Bloody kids." Moody hobbled back to the center of the room and added to Dumbledore, "He'll need protection, one way or another. Lupin knows about the placement. If he did have something to do with-"

"I truly doubt Lupin's disappearance has anything to do with allegiances." Dumbledore cut in calmly.

"But if it does, and he comes back to finish the job-"

"I refuse to let us turn on one another." Dumbledore reiterated, with a steely stare, and this time Moody relented.

"Then Severus?" Moody asked quietly, knowing that the once Death Eater knew about Tyler Evans and would suspect the placement.

A shadow passed behind his blue eyes before Dumbledore replied, "He will be here at Hogwarts soon enough, and I promise he won't harm the boy."

"You promise a great deal Albus." Moody pointed out.

Dumbledore nodded without looking up at the auror. He had lost himself in a thought, but it soon passed and he returned his attention to Moody once more, "It will all be well." He murmured.

"So The-Boy-Who-Lived stays in the protective arms of his dim uncle?" Moody finally accepted.

"For now." Dumbledore exhaled.

* * *

 _"We really appreciate you helping us out with this." Mr. Evans smiled into the rearview mirror. Severus was in the backseat next to a small stack of books and a brand new set of Gobstones they had picked out for Lily's fourteenth birthday that January. "You know how hard it is for us to pick out gifts Lily can use out at Hogwarts." He continued with a light chuckle. The previous year they had bought her a radio. It didn't work within Hogwarts grounds and was a disappointment to both Lily and the Evans parents._

 _"My pleasure, sir." Severus replied. The older man shook his head at the title. He was a slightly heavyset man with a greying beard and a warm smile his son had more than inherited. If Severus hadn't already known this he would have been witness to it right then since Tyler was turned fully around in the passenger seat. He was smiling, shuffling a set of cards around the chair and interrogating him about wizard's chess, occasionally breaking to ask him to "pick a card, any card". Severus obliged, but only because Mr. Evans was there, watching him, judging the boy who spent so much time with his daughter. The older man tugged Tyler's shirt to get him to turn around but it was to no avail, and Severus was left entertaining him._

 _"Three of diamonds." Severus told the younger boy. Tyler immediately pressed his head into his headrest in utter exasperation and then explained, again, that Severus wasn't supposed to tell him the card. Tyler reached through the headrest to take the card back from him acting put-upon. "Try again. Pick a card, any card." Severus was tempted to tell him he just drew a queen of spades because it would mean not having to act impressed when the boy flicked it out again in a few moments, but he was worried about Mr. Evans' green eyes in the mirror. He returned the card and forced himself to look out the window. Outside snow fluttered by, a surprise after the rain the night before, but the temperate had been plummeting the whole day._

 _"Have you gotten to see much of your parents this holiday break? I have to say I was surprised when you decided to come back here. Don't you usually stay at school?"_

 _"I've been visiting friends' families mostly." Severus lied. He had come back to spend time with Lily and hide in his room until Christmas was over. He didn't say that quite a few Slytherins were staying for break this year and he wanted a break from them._

 _"Cut the deck now!" Tyler demanded happily. Severus shook himself out of his thoughts and took the top half of the deck off then handed the stack back to the boy. He pretended not to notice as Tyler palmed a card into a place he would recognize._

 _"Tyler I need to you to turn around and sit down." Mr. Evans reminded with another tug at the boy's shirt._

 _"No, Dad. I'm working on this trick."_

 _"Not in the car." Mr. Evans insisted, to Severus's relief. "Turn around." Mr. Evans took his hand off the wheel for just a moment to pry Tyler's hands off the back of the chair. Severus reached out and began to untangle Tyler's arms from the seat, but as he worked something flicked in the corner of his vision, an oncoming car skidded. Black ice and snow were making a mess of the evening._

 _Severus's eyes must have grown wide because Tyler followed his line of sight, turned in time to see the bright blue car, hear the screeching. The world jerked forward for only a second and suddenly he was watching from the roadside as the family's four-door boxy red allegro spun out, flipped over and then stopped, too still to be anything but a pile of crushed glass and bent metal. What was left of Lily's gifts were scattered along the roadside like shrapnel, but all Tyler knew was that someone was holding him back from running to his father. Someone had their hands around his shoulders keeping him in place as pain wracked him. So, so, much pain._

Sudden, wrenching pain. He couldn't breath without it, couldn't move without it, but it just kept coming. There was so much screaming.

"Merlin!" Someone was cussing in front of him and then wrapping a blanket tightly around him. They had done that at the crash too, the day his dad had died, he wouldn't stop fighting to reach him until they wrapped him so tightly he couldn't even move a finger. Now, once again his arms were pressed to his sides, completely immobile. He slowly realized he had been fighting someone off. A cool hand reached up and covered his mouth and half of the screaming in the room quieted.

He breathed heavily through the other's fingers as the world swirled back into view. First the far wall, off white around a large fireplace. Pain was shooting down his legs as if someone were pulling apart his bones. He breathed in a shallow breath, shivered and blinked as the decorations on the mantle appeared, pictures of his family, Harry and Dudley's art projects. Pain in his sides, cuts stung and bruises throbbed. This was the home Lily and James had moved into when they graduated, bringing him with them. Spikes were drilling into his head. Then the floor. Harry! The pain was pushed aside when he saw the boy standing against the coffee table and crying. He began to fight anew, bones grinding and skin screaming under the blanket. He tried to bolt from the couch, but pain, a blanket, and two pale hands stopped him. The rest of the world came crashing back. He was home, ground floor, and right in front of him was the thin face of Severus Snape.

Whoa.

Tyler fell backward into the couch, coughing and then with half a breath, began talking; rasping, trying to explain himself, trying to tell Severus everything, spitting it out in half sentences, words, phrases, until he lost himself. He sputtered a few words and began fighting to get to Harry again. He had to comfort Harry. Why was Severus fighting him? Why was Harry crying? He wrestled until Severus pressed a small vial of smoking white liquid into his mouth and tilted it back.

The slightly bitter taste hit his tongue like a gift from God. Pain reliever. Warmth swirled in his stomach, slowly worked out to his fingers and toes like he was thawing after a long winter walk. He waited and finally it seeped into the worst areas, his ribs, neck and finally his headache that had been pounding behind everything else. It all released.

He relaxed into the couch as the world started floating in the aftermath of the biting pain…black spots popped in front of him as his blood pressure plummeted. He had almost blacked out a second time when Severus clapped loudly in his face and forced his attention.

He needed to pay attention. This was a bad moon, worst he'd had in years, but he could focus, he could do that. Everything had hurt when he had woken that morning, and if it wasn't hurting, it was bleeding. He had tried to staunch it, but he just kept blacking out. He felt awful. He had made a promise to Severus to be back by noon, and now here the other man was, in front of him, looking grumpy, but having saved his life. "Thank you?" Tyler tried to say through a foggy haze.

Severus did not look interested in his thanks, "I'm leaving. I've done what I can for most of your injuries. Do you think you can take care of yourself and Harry?"

Tyler felt the tight bandages around his ribs, the burn of silver dittany crusting over his cuts. He knew they never worked as well as they did for Remus, nothing ever did. With enough potions and salves the other werewolf could usually be back in action within a day, while Tyler would still be in too much pain to leave the couch two days after the full moon. He had felt miserable and pathetic by this realization until James had explained that many potions don't work quite as well on muggles. Others work too well, it was based on design, and no one was bothering to design werewolf-healing potions for muggles. James did what he could, calling on his parents and skimming old family potions books for answers. The simple truth was that not much could overcome the fact that muggles were simply not as sturdy as an honest-grown witch or wizard. Nonetheless potions could do better than even the best drugs on the market, and Severus had the education to tell them apart. Tyler felt immensely thankful for Severus's care, and now he honestly didn't want him to leave.

Severus couldn't leave him here like this? He squinted at his old friend, and felt a warm, safe glow fill him. Weariness overwhelmed him suddenly. Everything would be okay if Severus would just stay a few more hours, "Why?" He wondered aloud, surprising even himself; Severus didn't need to explain why he wanted to leave, he'd already done more than he had been asked to do, but Tyler wasn't sure he could take care of himself, let alone Harry.

He pulled his eyes open enough to see Severus's scowl. Tyler knew the man liked to imagine himself heartless, but he also knew he needed reminded that he wasn't. He pressed a smile onto his lips, he could feel a sealed over cut on his face crack at the motion, "You look grumpy." He murmured as a joke.

"Why what, Moss?" Severus snapped since scowling wasn't working to clarify what he wanted answered. Tyler squinted in confusion and then realized Severus was upset, really actually upset. Tyler needed to cover up his previous question, he needed to show Severus that he didn't need him to stay. He was thankful, but capable. He racked his brain and finally asked, "Is Harry okay?" The toddler had quieted when Tyler had started talking, but he couldn't quite tell if he was okay.

Severus sneered and turned around to the small boy on the floor. Tyler watched him pick him off the floor like a dirty pet and set him on the couch. Harry's face was still tear strained as he wiggled and eventually pressed his face into the blanket that was still wrapped, vice-like, around his uncle.

"Are you fine now?" Severus asked, motioning to the boy.

Tyler looked down at Harry, hoping to god the toddler was tired enough to fall asleep and nodded as gently as he could manage. He squinted up at Severus and tried to hold up his smile, "We're good." He reassured hoarsely.

Severus looked skeptical but didn't say anything as he turned to leave the room.

Tyler shut his eyes, but then remembered hurriedly, "Hey, Sev?" He would have to ask now. Showing up on the man's porch again a month from now wasn't an option. To his surprise Severus stopped right before leaving the room. "So do you wanna watch Harry next-" He didn't get the rest of the sentence out before Severus bared down on him, hands gripping the arm-rest of the couch.

"I don't know who you think I am to you Tyler Evans, but I promise I am not your friend, I am not your helper. I have a life, and important things to do. I don't have time to be babysitting your sister's bad decision. Surely your vial oldest sister could watch him." They held each other's stares for several seconds. Tyler didn't flinch away.

"She's not magic." He replied slowly as if this were obvious. Severus's lip curled and Tyler guessed the wizard was silently calling him thick, though he couldn't guess why. He continued because clearly Severus wasn't understanding, "Harry's wanted by some Dark Lor-."

"Don't call him that." Snape cut him off. Tyler's words died in his mouth, and Severus briefly looked down at his hands that were white from the strain of gripping the armrest. He hissed out a breath before saying, "The Dark Lord is gone and whatever it was that existed between Lily and I is similarly, over. Finished. It has been years and the fact that you haven't figured that out just proves how utterly pitiful your mind truly is. I don't need you dragging me back into your unfortunate excuse for a life." Severus's bitterness was grand today, Tyler noted; At least a 5 on the "Bitter Severus measurement scale". Harry must have kept him up all night.

"Why do you get to call him the Dark Lord and I don't?" Tyler started, petulantly, hoping that a petty argument would distract him from whatever life-shattering pity party he was throwing himself.

It didn't work. The next words out of the man's mouth were in the lowest hiss he had ever heard. "How is it possible that you are this useless? You've gotten yourself turned into a werewolf, you've gotten custody of a baby you can't hope to take care of. You've turned to me for help? What went wrong in your life that this is where you are now?"

Tyler blinked at Severus, not sure where to start. If he were honest Severus and Lily were likely the root of most of his peculiarities, but this didn't seem like the moment to mention it. He swallowed prepared to answer, but it didn't matter because Severus cut in again, "Do not bring Harry back to my house."

Severus pushed himself away from the couch and added, "Grow up and survive on your own just like everyone else!" Tyler thought the words sounded more pleading than angry, but he couldn't be certain, Severus was talented at covering his true feelings. In contrast he could feel his own face flipping through all the emotions he carried; Surprise, frustration, confusion, fear and suddenly it all caved in like a crumbling house. Tyler could see Godric's hollow again could feel his heart being squeezed and sucked away. He felt himself fall apart, just like he had been falling apart every day since Halloween night. His last failsafe, the last person he thought he could rely on, was leaving.

"You want to know why I brought him to you?" He asked, trying desperately to keep calm, "I trust you and I miss you. …You didn't come to her funeral, and I missed you."

Tyler tried to stare Severus down but Severus wouldn't look at him. He was being evasive, stepping backward toward the garden door. "I need someone to stick this out with me!" Tyler pleaded. He would have risen and grabbed the man by the shoulders to keep him in the room if he could. He didn't want someone else slipping away from him. It was panic that brought him to yell, "I brought Harry to you because you're the only person in the world I thought would miss her as much as I do!"

Severus flinched. He actually, visibly, flinched, and Tyler's stomach dropped.

He still cared about her! Severus _did_ miss her as much as he did. Tyler didn't have the chance to apologize or tell Severus that he understood why he hadn't been at the funeral, because Severus had turned, burst out the backdoor and into the small closed off garden. Tyler tried to detangle himself from the blanket but heard the pop from the backyard that told him Severus had disapparated before he had even an arm free.

He fell back into the couch, left in deadened silence, the world feeling a bit like a shaken jigsaw puzzle, pieces strewn everywhere. He barely realized when Harry said something about "Pongs" and tried to hand him a toy. It would be okay right? If mothers could lift cars off their children, surely he could drag himself off the couch if Harry needed something, even in his current state of being mostly not dead. His ribs screamed as he fought off miserable tears. He was the one who signed up for this, he reminded himself. Though saying 'no' had never been an option. He had to take care of Harry because if he lost him too, the hollowness in him would devour him. He would be a black hole, just like Severus imagined himself.

Meeting his first nephew, Dudley, had been the most stunning day of his life. Not long after, Harry was born, and from day one looking at Harry was like looking directly at the sun. He wanted to stare, but anything that brilliant must be harmful to his health. Harry made Tyler feel like he would explode with love, and thinking about not being his guardian, now that Lily was… now that Lily was dead…was like being stabbed a thousand times, then buried under a mountain of earth. No full moon could compare to what losing Harry would feel like. So he stayed propped up on the couch, preparing himself for the next couple days.


	4. Chapter 4: The Letter

Severus wanted to forget, to get his life back track. He wanted the alone life, without Death Eaters, without Lily, without Tyler, and especially without Harry.

He wanted a simple, lonely, existence, but images of Harry kept resurfacing. They fought for his attention. Harry's eyes were just like Lily's, his clothes smelled like her. The one time the child had laughed in his presence had stopped his heart. He laughed like her. It was haunting him. From the moment he had dropped Harry back at Tyler's side the boy had been trapped in his mind's eye.

When it wasn't the boy it was the house. He knew Lily and James had lived there after leaving Hogwarts and before moving to the house that had burned down. Pieces of them were still left around the edges. The pictures there were of the Evans as children, happy and together. Others were of the wedding, and some of the marauders. He yearned to look more closely at the corners and crevices of the space, to find Lily in all the details, in the books left on the shelves, the decorations she had left behind, the perfectly brewed potions in the cabinets.

Or it was Tyler himself. If it was nothing else it was that the boy had Lily's absolute and complete love. Lily was good, purely and absolutely good, and Severus had to admit Lily had made sure that even when she stumbled, Tyler would never have to. So when the boy yelled today it had started eating him inside immediately.

Severus had stormed out. Stormed out and disapparated the second he realized that Tyler had seen his secret. That Tyler was now one of the few people on the planet who knew how much he still cared for Lily; that he loved her. He didn't want that. He didn't want anyone else in on that information, it was dangerous and painful to know someone saw a crack in his carefully constructed exterior- and more dangerous that it was known by a boy who talked more than he didn't. So Severus had stormed out before more could be said, more could be realized.

He reappeared in the woods, at the edge of Cokeworth. The rare November sun sent harsh shadows through the leafless trees. Twigs cracked under his feet as he walked.

He knew why he had come to this spot. This was where he had spent so much time with Lily. When they were younger it was a jungle of adventures. The trees were towers and beanstalks to giants, the paths lead to dragon's lairs and every trickle of water an ocean. As they grew the ocean may have shrunk back to a stream and dragons slept safely, but stories were still shared. He and Lily would walk and talk. They would laugh. The forest was eerie and awful in the woods without her, just like everything else in his life had become.

Almost everything.

Severus found a branch of the old stream and stepped into its icy waters. His shoes soaked through, and the water stung his skin. It was a horrible idea, his feet were now ice cold and wet. He stepped out, cursing himself, but he had to admit that for a second, the cold had helped him forget everything. The stinging water helped him choke down the realization that Tyler, that Harry, had almost made him feel human again.

He left the stream and any path. No one saw him or spoke to him as he swept through the underbrush asking himself questions, asking the universe questions. Listening as no one answered him.

There was only silence.

But he kept walking, because what else was there to do but move and try not to remember the girl and the promises he made to her.

 _Thick summer heat had settled over Hogwarts, and still vacation hadn't come. Severus would do anything to leave the school, though neither the trip home, nor the summer weeks would bring him much joy. With Lily so furious at him he couldn't imagine anything worth living for, but there was a chance, just a chance that he would see her this summer, and it all depended on this next conversation. He stood just inside the door that led out to the courtyard. Lily was seated lazily atop the outer wall where they used to spend some of their free time, but like everything else she had gotten the wall in their falling out._

 _Severus pulled up the sleeves of his robes. Yes, it was miserably hot outside but he needed to speak to her, and, of course, he wanted to. This was the best place to corner her. They hadn't spoken since the night she had yelled at him after he had said the word. The damned word. He fingered the edge of the parchment in his pocket and bit his lower lip, working up courage. He finally gathered himself, nudged the door the rest of the way open and rushed across the open space to where Lily sat. She didn't look up from the book in her hands for quite a few seconds. When she finally turned her attention up to him her face was closed off and bitter._

 _"Can I help you?" She clipped. Severus felt his hands slipping with sweat. Lily had clearly placed a cooling charm around herself, temperature charms were something she had become particularly good at. It was how she found quiet places to sit and read. Go somewhere cold, set up a warming charm, go somewhere unbearably hot, set up a cooling spell, then sit and read in quiet. He knew her defense mechanisms, her hiding-out skills. They were the same whether she was hiding from noisy siblings or noisy Gryffindors._

 _He didn't answer right away but pulled the letter from his pocket. It was two pages on thin lined muggle paper. Both sides of both sheets were filled, edge-to-edge, with small messy words. He let Lily gingerly take it out of his hands and skim the first few lines. She got the gist quickly and folded it back up without looking up at him. She was trying to compose herself. She didn't speak, and didn't speak, and finally Severus asked, "You didn't tell him?"_

 _Lily crossed her legs; One slim leg over the other and stared evasively at her knees. She shook her head, barely perceptibly. "I couldn't tell him." She admitted._

 _"So now what?" Severus asked seriously. She couldn't honestly expect them to head back to Cokeworth and pretend like she hadn't broken it off, that there wasn't an irreparable rift between them, getting wider every day. "He wrote that to me. He'll comes over to my house by himself, he expects us to hang out this summer." Severus pointed to a very specific line in the boy's letter where he asked if he wanted to see his new metal ring tricks, if he wanted to go see a movie with him, "What do you expect me to do?"_

 _"Go to the movies." Lily replied bitterly._

 _Severus's eyebrows crawled up his forehead before he could ask, "And what do I tell him about us?"_

 _"Whatever you want." Lily replied, looking everywhere but at Severus or the letter. She fidgeted then stood up and began putting books back into her bag._

 _"Lily, he's a muggle kid." Severus knew it was dumb to believe he could talk Lily into spending time with him if Tyler was involved, but he had had that spark of hope and now it was gone. Now Lily just expected him to spend time with her brother because the boy had asked, and the boy would keep asking until the world ended in an explosion of fiendfyre. Severus knew, from experience, that Tyler would show up at his house, he would meet him on the street, he would write him letters. Severus bit his tongue before accidentally calling the boy annoying or bothersome. Lily always made faces when he called him that, so instead he said weakly, "I can't tell him…"_

 _"What Severus? You can't tell him what?" She looked at him with a piercing, confrontational glint in her green eyes, "That you called me a mudblood? That your best friends use dark magic, that you are joining a group of people who want me and him dead?"_

 _Severus took a step back, it was impossible not to in the face of her wrath, under her seething glare. Stepping away he realized he hadn't considered how Tyler would take the news, and he found he couldn't answer her. He had been more worried about losing his last connection to Lily than he was about the boy. It was bad enough that Lily hated him, but he wouldn't know what to do if Tyler's trusting eyes betrayed fear and hatred as well._

 _So what would he tell Tyler, and what would he do without Lily that summer vacation?_

 _"I promised to protect you from them." Severus reminded slowly, dragging a memory out of their past as a last ditch attempt to keep her._

 _"And my family-" Lily added bitterly. "I remember; The summer after first year, when all those killings were taking place... You promised to protect me… and my family."_

 _Severus remembered that Lily Evans' smile had been the brightest between their first and second years. The weather was always perfect and the days always stretched long, but not long enough to get in everything they wanted to do. The forest was smaller, sure, and the playground seemed juvenile, but that didn't matter, they had Hogwarts to talk about and homework to do together, and devilish plans to make. But that was also the summer when the first real attacks began, and Severus had promised to protect her, to protect her family._

 _"I would never hurt you." He told Lily seriously. "…Or Tyler." He added when her face didn't change from a disappointed glare. How could she not understand that she could be protected, that he could do it, no matter what side he was on?_

 _"But not everyone else like us?" Lily reminded for the hundredth time._

 _"I promise you." Severus repeated fiercely._

 _"I don't care." Lily forced out, out ignoring him. She breathed in and finally got back around to the point of their discussion. "Tyler deserves the truth, but he also should get to believe in the goodness of the world a little longer, because he can." She pinched her eyes shut and admitted, "I need him to believe in the goodness of the world, because I obviously can't anymore. So I'm not going to tell him about you." She had said exactly what Severus couldn't put into words. Destroying Tyler's misguided adoration of him would kill the last bit of warmth he could still feel in the cold stone of his heart, his last connection to Lily._

 _Lily gave him the disappointed, deadened look he had come to know and bumped his shoulder as she hurried away. Severus was left stunned under the burning sun, his fingers gripping the edges of Tyler's long driveling letter, knowing he couldn't break the boy's faith anymore than Lily could. Knowing he would have to prove to Lily that he could protect her. That he could protect her family._

How far did that promise extend. Did it continue after he had already failed? Did it extend past her death?

* * *

The day flickered in and out.

In, and out.

Tyler detangled himself from the blanket, put on a dirty t-shirt he found draped over a chair. He fed Harry, changed his diaper, sat on the floor as the boy climbed all over him, he winced, and bit his tongue and tried to play when Harry offered him small stuffed animals from his pile of toys. He dozed. He gave Harry snacks and another meal though he couldn't bring himself to eat as nausea and a headache were returning. The cabinets of potions leftover from Lily and James were a mystery of unlabeled bottles. He popped several Tylenol and slumped onto the kitchen floor.

When he awoke again he had made it to the couch, though he couldn't remember how. Light had faded outside the window and the living room was grey in the darkness.

He couldn't move from shaking. The pain potion had fully worn off, and any fever reducer Severus had sloshed down his throat while he was unconscious had tapered off in his system. He was burning hot, sweat beaded on his forehead and had soaked his thin t-shirt. Where was Harry? His stomach flipped and fear almost made him sick. Where was Harry? He reached out for the coffee table, needing something to help drag himself out from under the covers that were cooking him alive.

The blankets on the couch clung to his clothing making it hard to escape. He freed one leg, gingerly pressed his knee into the carpeted floor as the world began spinning furiously around him. He pressed a hand into the ground, half free from the couch and still no sign of his nephew. He tried to call out, but the boy's names escaped his lips in a hoarse whisper. He tried to control his fall to the ground as he escaped the pull of the couch and landed on the floor. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it from his empty stomach through his teeth, his eyelids and all the way up to his throbbing head. His hands were shaking under him as he rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up onto his knees. "Harry." He repeated with a little more strength.

"Pa-fo, Moo-y, Dadadada, Wo-mi, Mamama." Something sang from the kitchen, followed by resounding clang and a clatter of something that made black spots pop in Tyler's swimming vision.

Just in the kitchen.

Tyler was on his feet faster than his breath or heart could catch up with him. He hit the doorframe to the adjacent room with a force that knocked the wind from him. He tumbled over the threshold, barely holding himself up long enough to slam into the table, leaning into it with screaming ribs. Heat from the exertion burnt him, he roasted while goose bumps crawled up his arms and onto his neck. They stung, but was worth it. He had found Harry. Sure the child was halfway into a cabinet, there was dried oatmeal and jam across the entire floor, pans and Tupperware were strewn everywhere, but the boy was fine. He was fine. He was totally fine.

Tyler's heartbeat slowed and skittered as it tried to resume normal activities. He slumped onto the table and considered never moving again. The wood was cool against his cheek and he almost let himself drift off completely before he painfully pulled himself back into the present, and the job at hand. "Up, up, up." He repeated determinedly to himself in the same voice Lily would use as she dragged him out of bed for school after the power-that-be let him move in with her. She used to pull his blankets off him, like the cruel older sister she was, but then would always make him a warm breakfast like the thoughtful sister she also was. It saddened him that Harry would never have that experience, either of having a mother or a sibling.

Tyler repeated the phrase and pushed himself resolutely off the table, stumbled sideways then arduously clambered around the table. He pulled off a controlled fall to the ground wincing only slightly against his several screaming injuries and leaned against the blue painted cabinets, right next to Harry.

The toddler could play with every pot and pan in the house, what did he care so long as Tyler knew where he was, and that he was safe. He watched, forcing his eyes open as Harry crawled the rest of the way into the cabinet and began pulling muffin tins out onto the kitchen floor, then mixing bowls, and pasta. He played in the dusty oatmeal and banged the pans around. Each noise sent flares through Tyler. Hot was starting to turn to cold. He shivered, but there was no way he could do anything about it. There was no strength left in him to find a warmer place.

Harry discovered a drawer full of hot pads and made no show of slowing or tiring, then Tyler blinked and the boy was at the refrigerator door with a pan and the door to the kitchen creaked open.

Fever dreams were strange, Tyler realized as he stared up at the face of Severus for the third time that day. His old friend blurred then solidified once more. The man was taking in the situation and Tyler could tell by the way his nose seemed to thin that he was forcibly repressing a sneer. It was unfortunate, Tyler thought, because he could really use some of the man's dry wit right now. It would bring some much-needed levity to his current- sitting in oatmeal dust and pans situation- but Severus seemed uncharacteristically subdued.

"I was worried the potions would have worn off by now." The man murmured, as if that explained anything.

Tyler watched him vaguely as he crossed to the high potion's cabinet and pushed bottles around. He pulled his wand out of his pocket and Tyler watched as dark words began writing themselves on the glass. The letters seemed to float onto the bottle in his fever haze.

He shut his eyes momentarily and the next thing he knew Severus was kneeling next to him. "Pain potion." He explained holding up a bottle of light blue liquid now clearly labeled "Pain potion, part 1".

"Uncork it. The ration is one to two with this." Severus held up a second, smaller bottle with a cream colored potion inside, "wait until it froths and drink it." Severus pulled the same small bottle he had force-fed Tyler with that morning off the table behind them. It was full once more with the steaming potion. Harry banged a small pan against the refrigerator door, and Tyler realized they hadn't eaten dinner.

Severus pressed the potion into his hand and directed him to drink before turning to another, larger bottle containing a clear orange liquid. "Fever reducer." He stated pointing to the new label. Tyler tried to keep his eyes open as Severus went through seven more carefully labeled potions each with new descriptions and instructions embossed on the backs. The pain potion was helping with everything but the fever and weariness. Severus poured some of the orange potion down his throat and as it began to kick in the exhaustion became uncontrollable. Severus must have noticed because he stopped talking, and replaced all the bottles he had explained, plus some back into the cupboard. He opened the refrigerator Harry had been fighting with and pulled out a boiled egg from the day before. He peeled it with a quick spell, handed it to Harry and without another word left through the same door he had entered through, with not even a scoff. Tyler felt a bit shorted. But as the man left Tyler couldn't help but wonder if that was a "yes". If that meant he'd keep Harry during the next full moon.

* * *

That was definitely not a "yes", that definitely did not mean he'd keep Harry during the next full moon, Severus reassured himself. He was sitting at his dining room table, trying to think through his actions. He had been too impulsive. Everything about the day had been impulsive, unstructured. Tyler always mucked things up, always made things more difficult than they should be.

Severus had let his feet take him from the forest to his home and with the floo to Tyler's living room. Tyler was gone, the only sign of him being a wad of discarded blankets on the floor. Severus paused by the fireplace, hoping both he and Harry were in the upper floors, asleep. Severus had formulated a bit of a plan in the time it took him to get from the forest to his home. If he did nothing else he needed to label the potions cabinet. That way Tyler could, conceivably heal himself. He was certain without any potions knowledge Tyler had been completely confused by the contents of the cabinet. If Tyler was upstairs he could sneak into the kitchen, label them, leave a note, and there would be no uncomfortable interactions.

His hopes were crushed by the sound of a pan clattering to the floor one room away. Something was going on in the kitchen. Severus exhaled a long, disappointed breath and began to walk into the kitchen.

His plans hadn't prepared him for the utter disarray of the room and the absolute frailty he saw in Tyler. The floor had been destroyed in much the same way he had feared Harry could have destroyed his that morning. There was dried oatmeal, cracked bit of dried pasta, flour and what appeared to be the entire contents of a home goods store creating a minefield across the room. Harry was off to one side, alternately chewing on a baking pan and banging it against the doors of the muggle refrigerator, barred from access by childproofing locks. Tyler sat a few feet away, barely conscious and clearly shivering against one of the blue painted cabinets. His eyes were focused on Harry, but his brain didn't seem to be making any valuable connections. Severus sucked in his desire to sneer, and then had done what he come to do, plus a few things, like giving Tyler a clearly necessary second round of potions and feeding the ravenous toddler.

It was only later, sitting in his dining room, that the horror of the scene truly hit him. It echoed in his head and he couldn't shake the images. Though it was evident in the way Tyler stared at Harry that he cared about this kid, Severus wondered if he could care _for_ him.

He wanted to curse, but it seemed too mundane an act for what he truly wanted to do. He had left the marauders in charge of Tyler for two years _, two years,_ and the boy had not only been attacked by a werewolf (and he could guess which one), but he had been left without a safety net to help him out. The group of reckless, mangy Gryffindors had all gotten themselves thrown in Azkaban or murdered and now Lily's family- Lily's son -was left to fend for himself! How could they have messed up so horribly?

It wasn't okay, and now Tyler was left to pick up the pieces.

Severus swallowed the lump rising in his throat, the one choking him as he realized that _he_ was left to pick up the pieces, and he certainly didn't want it to be.

* * *

 _A/N- Happy Holidays, everyone._


	5. Chapter 5: Hogwarts

It was three days later when an owl alerted Severus that Dumbledore requested his presence for his first training at Hogwarts. Three days of brooding and unpacking and eating bad food, prepared poorly. He had almost managed to forget the full moon, and Harry, and Tyler. Almost. But now, with a letter from Dumbledore pinched between his fingers, he realized that this would be his chance to speak to the old Headmaster with regards to his worries about Harry's placement.

He had tossed the issue back and forth in his head for days and finally decided Harry would have to be moved to Petunia's. It was the only option. . . The only option that would keep him a safe distance from the child for the foreseeable future. Petunia was stiff, and a bit bigoted, but she would certainly give Harry a perfectly normal upbringing.

A perfectly normal upbringing where he wouldn't have to fight for food, or deal with a 19-year-old, werewolf, guardian.

Severus pulled a few books from his shelf, packed them into a neat black bag and apparated to the Hogsmeade gates early the next morning. Frost made the grounds glisten white as he walked up the well-beaten path. He moved as briskly as possible, doing anything to avoid thinking about everything that had happened on those grounds. The lake, trees, gardens were all reminders. He averted his eyes and pushed forward, forward, forward until he was on the stairs and through the large front doors. He knew the interior would not be any better, but he wasn't expecting the sudden overwhelming smell of wood and cold stone to send spindles of uncomfortable nostalgia into every last nerve ending.

He was back at Hogwarts.

There were a few students milling about on their way to breakfast, or class but it didn't matter, Severus just needed to get Dumbledore's office. He had been there before, after a particularly awful day in fifth year when he was asked to speak with the Headmaster. Then again, not long ago, to admit things he swore he never would. He turned from the main hall and headed toward Dumbledore's gargoyle, his eyes downcast, the halls holding no warmth, no light for him anymore.

"Licorice." Severus growled and the guard at Dumbledore's door sprung aside hurriedly, seemingly shocked at the tone in the young man's voice, but when Severus looked up Dumbledore standing before him.

"Severus, good that you've arrived precisely on time." There was no twinkle in his eyes, none of the façade the old man put up for the benefit of others. He simply gave Severus a once over then swept past him, headed for the Dungeons. It was strange to be one of the few people on Earth who had the chance to see past the pleasant act, past his carefully constructed character. Of course Dumbledore was one of the few people on Earth who had seen past Severus's mask, seen his own naked truth. "Come along then, you'll be with Horace today."

"Of course, sir." Severus agreed catching up to the old wizard and matching his swift stride.

"How has the move been?" Dumbledore asked, though he didn't sound particularly interested. He seemed to be checking boxes off a mental list of check-in topics.

"Acceptably." Severus replied equally curtly. The move from his apartment back to Spinner's End was a mess but it wasn't worth his time to get into a conversation about it with a man who didn't care.

"Were you able to locate the books you will need for the next few months."

Severus nodded shortly and motioned to the bag over his shoulder.

"Very good. Is there anything else that I should be aware of?" Severus suspected he meant "is there anything else related to Death Eaters I should be aware of" but he wasn't sure when he would see the Headmaster again. He needed to ask about Harry right now. It wouldn't be terribly out of place, Dumbledore had asked him to help protect the child, after all. Still, the thought of bringing it up twisted knots into the pit of his stomach. He fought the feeling as their feet slapped even patterns on the cold stone floor. They were alone, the halls were empty. Just past this statue he would ask, he decided. He had to be careful with wording, but he had practiced the conversation, it would be fine.

They passed the statue, then a picture, and finally as levelly as he could manage he asked, "Harry went to Lily's brother correct? I just wanted to be sure."

"Yes." Dumbledore nodded, looking a bit confused at Severus's interest.

"He's being protected, checked in on occasionally?" Severus continued, barely realizing that his legs felt numb with worry beneath him.

Dumbledore gave him the exact deep, thoughtful look he was trying to avoid, "Harry is very safe, and there are neighbors around keeping an eye out for him as well. If you are worried about Tyler's capabilities I can assure you that I have absolute faith that he will be a fine guardian, and Harry will be safe from harm." Severus tried not to scoff, but a disgruntled noise still escaped him. "After all someone convinced the Death Eaters that Lily Potter only had a sister." Dumbledore's eyes almost twinkled knowingly, but even the great Albus Dumbledore couldn't completely cover his own disgust, and instead his eyes merely betrayed a deep understanding.

"Of course, but only after her mother had been attacked." Severus pointed out. Lily's mother had been his first, true, failure but her dying had satiated the Death Eaters well enough to keep Petunia and Tyler safe. Though it was little comfort Severus knew Mrs. Evan would have died for her children, no questions asked.

"War is a nasty business." Dumbledore said softly. His pace slowed just a bit. They were nearing the stairs to the dungeons. Their conversation couldn't last much longer unless they slowed.

"No chance that the boy could be placed with his aunt?" Severus ventured. "I know-" Severus caught himself and corrected, "I _knew_ Lily's family quite well and I never had a great deal of trust in the boy."

Dumbledore watched Severus carefully, his eyes becoming thin with questions. "Not without a very compelling reason." He finally answered.

Severus suddenly wondered how much the Headmaster knew about the Tyler's condition. Surely if he knew everything he wouldn't have dropped the child with him. There were a dozen regulations and more than enough de facto laws preventing werewolves from guardianship. Though Dumbledore had never much bothered with rules relating to those creatures this was the Boy-Who-Lived, this was Harry Potter! Surely someone would care enough to move him. Severus knew could let it slip, right then, he could tell the Headmaster and it would all be over. It would have to be. Dumbledore would have to move Harry.

The silence was weighted with the possibility. Severus could almost feel his shoulders grow heavy with the choice. It took him a moment before he realized they had stopped moving. There was a flurry of noise and chatter coming from behind them. A squad of Gryffindor and Slytherin first years were walking down to their Potions class, and for the first time Severus wondered what it would be like to teach at Hogwarts? To teach groups of eleven-year-olds? His brain kept moving along that terrifying train of thought, plowing forward. What would it be like, ten years from now, to teach a skinny boy with a tuft of black hair and Lily Evan's eyes? The boy would be in his classes, roaming the halls, surely getting himself into trouble. No matter what became of the boy at the next full moon, in ten years he would be seeing him in potions classes. The weight on him increased exponentially. Realizations strangled him. Would he see the boy in ten years as a stranger? Would he keep him at a safe distance, insult him, like he had his father? Would he hold that grudge so deep in his chest that it would burn onto the little boy he had held only a few nights before? The boy who liked quaffles, and boiled eggs, and would only fall asleep to the sound of old book pages turning.

The last few members of the class were trickling by. A young Gryffindor girl walked by holding a book out for a Slytherin to see. She was talking about an elementary potions theory, but was explaining it very well. Severus shut his eyes and was lifted away as an image of a boy with bright green eyes, smiling and waving at him darted across his thoughts. He fumbled behind him for the stair railing, dizzy with wonder. The moment made his heart feel as if it had floated outside his body. He tried to conjure it again. Lily Evan's eyes on a boy, on _Harry_ , eleven, smiling and waving at him as he raced down a Hogwarts hall. That couldn't truly be a possibility could it? No child could ever grow to like him even if they spent every full moon together for ten years!

Even if he did say "yes" to Tyler's proposition, mostly he and Harry would be sleeping, eating meals and dealing with all the basics of life…But Tyler liked him. More than once he had shown up at Severus's house simply wanting to eat sandwiches and juggle stupid objects in his living room. There was nothing special or interesting about their time together either. Was that a relationship? Was that friendship? Could that overcome all he had done wrong?

And the most important question: could Harry, orphaned, burdened with being The-Boy-Who-Lived, some day, actually forgive him for the hand Severus had in his parent's death?

"Severus?" Dumbledore forced his attention back to the present. The children had all wandered by, the way was clear. "Was there something you wanted to say?"

He could be a stranger to Harry, or, maybe, a friend… a distant, distant, friend but one nonetheless.

He shut his mouth deciding not to tell Dumbledore about Tyler's particular problem. He needed to think about this. He needed to consider his options.

Severus shook his head, and he and Dumbledore continued together toward the entrance to the potion's dungeons.

* * *

Professor Slughorn had had a special place in his heart for Lily Evan, Severus was reminded, time and time again over the next nine hours. Severus survived the old potions master- sure, he had briefly considered stabbing his own hand with a knife to manage the pain of the situation- but he hadn't and the day eventually rolled to an end.

Dumbledore arrived at he door to the potions lab right before dinner. "You are welcome to stay and eat Severus." He offered. Lunch had been spectacular, though incredibly awkward. The temptation to stay for a meal was overwhelming, but so was the desire to leave. He was worried any longer in the castle would mean more uncomfortable conversations, more general lamenting about his once-best-friend, more awkward questions about his allegiances.

"I'll be seeing you sir." He said instead, slipping by the Headmaster and out into the dark hallway. Severus left the castle at a slightly slower pace than he had arrived with. As he strode toward the front doors he battled his wildly running imagination as it conjured the very possible images of Harry Potter in all the places he and Lily used to frequent; Hallways where they would do homework before class, stones they tripped over, paintings they critiqued between howls of laughter. He left the building and the yard opened up to him, reminding him of warm walks to the greenhouses and making snow angels in the dead of winter.

He reached the gate in an oddly uplifted mood that he was trying desperately to stifle with reality. Harry was just a baby- and James Potter's baby at that. No matter how much Harry was like Lily it couldn't change that basic fact.

More so, it couldn't change what Severus had done.

He apparated to his living room, but started at the sound of voices in the kitchen. His wand was immediately at the ready. He slipped to the wall, sneaking until he could look around the corner and into the dining room.

It was only Tyler. Of course it was Tyler!

He was playing a peek-a-boo tag game around the old chairs with a giggling Harry. Tyler would wince as he bent and hid, but his smile was more than wide enough to cover any pain. He looked good, healthy. Across the room Harry squealed in delight as he toddled around, sometimes chasing, sometimes pointing but always happy. Tyler knelt to hide under the table and Severus took a moment to appreciate the sight before making his presence noticed. "What are you doing in my house?"

Tyler's head shot up, cracking on the underside of the table. He almost cursed, covered his head and slowly wiggled out from the tangle of chairs.

"Hey Sev." He replied as he got slowly to his feet, "I thought we should talk."

"So you broke into my house?" Severus bit out.

Tyler frowned for just a second before perking up with a thought, "I brought cookies!"

* * *

 _A/N- Short, action-less chapter, but necessary. As always thank you, thank you, thank you for reading and reviewing! It's been delightful watching the ticker go up on people reviewing, favoriting, and following this story._


	6. Chapter 6: Always

A/N

Guys, Alan Rickman died, and I'm not a huge fan of feeling sad about the deaths of people I don't personally know, but somewhere on my computer (you know in that file we all have where we store internet pictures that make us feel happy when we a)Have no internet or b) are sad) is that quote with Alan Rickman's picture next to it (not actually a quote by him?):

 _When I'm 80 years old and sitting in my rocking chair, I'll be reading Harry Potter. And my family will say to me "After all this time?" and I will say, "always."_

Also Rickman will never be 80.

We are lucky to have Galaxy Quest, and Hitchhikers Guide and (even though I'm not the biggest fan of the movies) Harry Potter (among so many others) and it hurts and it's consoling all at the same time that there are a few memories of his existence stored in the pensieve of movies, and in his really good quotes, and the stories shared by people who _did_ know him personally.

I think it's okay to be sad when the world looses a good person, and Alan Rickman (from my distance of only being a fan) seemed like a good person.

* * *

Severus stared. Tyler was still standing a few feet to the side of his kitchen table, rubbing his head and looking only slightly apologetic. "I thought we needed to talk." The boy tried to explain.

"You broke into my house."

Tyler shrugged and fiddled with a piece of loose string hanging from his jacket until Severus's glare broke him. "It's important and I'm good with a lock pick, and I've snuck into this place so many-"

"I know." It was a weekly occurrence the summer after his seventh year. "You still broke in." He chastised. Severus had done his best to guard his house against wizards and witches and any other manner of magical beings. It was only at this moment that he realized the wide gap in his security that allowed Tyler to break in through the front door.

"It was cold outside and I didn't think you'd let me in otherwise."

"I wouldn't have. I told you to stay away from here."

"Your exact words were to not bring Harry here at the next full moon."

"And then I said never to speak to me again."

"Are you sure you didn't just think that very loudly." Tyler asked skeptically.

Severus glared.

"On the other hand I was very out-of-it during that particular conversation… Did you end up enchanting a blue armadillo puppet… Oh no, of course not, that was the fever." Tyler's face scrunched up thoughtfully.

"What do you think we need to talk about?" Severus bit out almost resigning himself to the conversation at hand.

Tyler distractedly rubbed the bump on his head then admitted, "I dunno." He brought his hand down. "I just feel like we haven't talked in what? Two years?" He took in a deep breath. "I, at least, owe you an explanation for-" Tyler gestured around himself silently meaning, "everything, and that one thing specifically".

"I don't care."

"Okay." Tyler replied uncertainly. Harry toddled over to his pant legs and began pulling and hobbling around his feet begging for attention. Tyler stood uncomfortably in Severus's dining room, clearly a little uncomfortable but not making a move to leave. He picked Harry up off the floor and planted a smothering kiss on his cheek. He soaked in the funny smile Harry gave him then turned back to Severus.

"They're double chocolate cookies, which I know were Lily's favorite, but they were also kind of your favorite, for a while." Tyler walked into Severus's kitchen and brought back a Tupperware dish full to bursting with warm brown cookies, nearly as nice looking as something the House elves could have made.

Severus's stomach was rumbling. Besides lunch, he hadn't eaten anything that tasted good in three weeks. It was tempting, so, so tempting to reach out and take one, but if he did he knew he would be agreeing to the conversation at hand. He looked up and Tyler was smiling. "I can see it in your eyes, you want one." He taunted in a sing-song voice.

Severus growled from the back of his throat and pushed past the boy to get into the dining room and then the kitchen.

"I can make some grilled cheese instead." Tyler suggested. "It's a specialty of mine now. Add a few slices of ham and you've actually got a meal."

Severus didn't reply as he swept around the room.

"I'll make you a deal. How about that? You let me cook something actually edible- and don't lie I saw your rubbish when Harry tried to crawl in it you've only been eating canned soup and bread- and you get to provide the ingredients and alcohol. That way you won't have to feel like you're giving in to me or anything. It's just like I'm hired help. It'll be me saying 'thank you' for saving mine and probably Harry's lives."

Severus hadn't found anything in the kitchen to pretend to do. He hadn't found anything he wanted to cook or swallow in an attempt at eating to shut up his hunger. Did he have that much pride or shame that he would give up a cooked meal all to avoid Tyler and Harry? His stomach grumbled and he slammed the last cabinet door shut and drawled, "Get out of my house" before stalking into the living room.

"How do you feel about soup?" Behind him Tyler had wandered back into the kitchen and begun pulling food out of the cabinets. "Oh Firewhisky." Severus couldn't say he was surprised that Tyler was staying. In truth he couldn't be all that upset about dinner either. If the boy was going to stay he might as well make himself useful.

* * *

Dinner was meatloaf, roasted potatoes and peas. Severus wasn't sure where the boy had even found the ingredients to make the meal, let alone the knowledge to cook it. Nonetheless his mouth was watering before he was even in the dinning room, and he was grateful.

There were only one and a half places set when he wandered into the dining room at Tyler's beckoning. Tyler was already at the table, Harry on his lap as the toddler either fought with, or ate the food in front of him; it was hard to tell which.

"Aren't you eating something as well Moss?" Severus asked curiously.

The boy looked up at him through heavy lidded eyes. "You know I'm never hungry after funerals."

Severus groaned halfway into his seat, rose back up and walked into the kitchen. He scooped leftover potatoes and meatloaf onto a plate, found a fork, and swept back into the dining room to set the food before Lily Evan's whining younger brother. Tyler pulled a face.

"Lily and I force fed you an entire plate of take-out rice once." Severus threatened, as a jolt of surprise shot through his core at the sound of Lily's name rolling off his tongue. He was still reeling as he walked around the table and sat down just in time to hide the fact that his knees were giving out beneath him.

Across the table Tyler watched him, not touching his food. He remembered the rice incident. That was after his father's funeral. After his mother's funeral Severus had only managed to feed him chocolate and oatmeal before dragging him, still mostly drunk back to Petunia's place. "Eat" Severus demanded again and Tyler reluctantly retrieved his fork from the table. Both men took tentative bites of their dinner and found themselves inwardly sighing with delight.

Severus knew it wasn't as good as Hogwarts food, but at this point in his life anything not out of a box or can was blessed. They didn't speak for several minutes, but the silence was easily filled with Harry's babbling, and Tyler's mumbled responses between forkfuls of potatoes. Tyler cleared his plate just as Harry became more interested in spreading peas around the table then eating them. Tyler took him to the kitchen to rinse him off and came back and sat lazily in his chair, letting Harry wander around. Severus could tell he was preparing himself for the conversation at hand, but it took another thirty seconds before he finally spat out his thoughts. "It wasn't Lupin."

Severus took a few moments of food-muddled confusion to figure out what he meant. Then realization dawned on him. "The lycanthropy?"

"I know you're probably mad at them for letting me get into trouble, so I thought I'd tell you it wasn't their fault."

"Somehow I doubt that." Severus sneered, putting down his utensils and leaning back in his chair, annoyed that Tyler knew too well what he had been thinking earlier that week.

"I was dumb." Tyler continued. "I knew there was a war, and I wanted to help. I wanted to fight. Everyone else was."

Severus's stomach knotted. "Everyone else" was fighting, though not necessarily on the same side.

"They were always trying to keep me out of everything, and it bother me."

"They were a bothersome group." Severus agreed dryly. Tyler smirked knowingly. Quite a few summer conversations between Severus and Lily had revolved around the very group of people Lily ended up calling family.

"I was annoyed that they didn't believe I could be helpful. They wouldn't even talk about the war while I was in the room, or what they were up to. Lily would always shut them up with one of her looks." Tyler made a face and Severus was horrified at how similar it was to Lily's threatening glare. "Well at some point I had heard that werewolves… I heard that they weren't interested in muggles, we weren't as tasty as wizards or something. I took this to mean I was invisible to them. I mean how many muggles have you heard of being turned into werewolves? Like none, right?" Tyler paused and added, as a sidebar. "Turns out that's because if werewolves eat muggles like they're crisps."

Severus stared levelly at him, waiting for him to continue.

Tyler sighed and got to the point. "I don't know why I did it. I was being an idiot, but I found out that Captain flippy-hair" Severus almost smiled at Tyler's name for Sirius, "-was wondering what Remus was getting up to hanging out with the werewolves all the time and I stupidly thought that I could find out because I was invisible. I though if I found out they would finally let me help them win the war and… come on you know I think wizards are cool!" Tyler reminded with a whine. Severus made a motion for Tyler to continue and the boy acquiesced, "I found out where Remus was going to be thanks to my sneaky little brother powers and I snuck out and followed him on a full moon night. I then pretended to be one of them. Dumb idea. Well, Remus saw me, just as the moon was rising. He apparated back to the house, at huge risk to everyone, and managed to tell James what was happening as Sirius was dragging him to the basement, and James came and got me. I was half a chew toy at that point."

"And you lived."

"Barely. Check this out." Tyler started to pull up the side of his shirt to show off a scar but Severus put his hand up begging him to stop.

"Don't. I've seen it."

Tyler pulled his shirt down, "Oh, yeah…" His face burnt red but he managed to hide his embarrassment by staring at the table, waiting patiently for Severus's verdict on his actions.

"You're an idiot." Severus agreed slowly. He too was looking at the table, slowly thinking through the next steps. Thinking through the truth that needed to come out. "But only the second biggest idiot in the room." He breathed out before he could lose his nerve.

Tyler's brow furrowed in confusion, then mild annoyance. "Don't say that about Harry." He requested, though the boy was, at that moment, happily chewing on the edge of a dining room chair.

"Not Harry." Severus cut in. Guilt was bubbling up in him, and he had to come clean. "I'm the idiot. I joined the wrong side of the war Moss. I am- I was… a Death Eater."  
"That can't be healthy." Severus stared with confusion until Tyler clarified. "Eating death- don't you catch whatever they died from?"

Severus's eyes widened as he realized what Tyler was thinking. "Are you telling me after years living with your sister you don't know what a Death Eater is?" Severus blustered. Tyler's lip curled into a dopey smile and Severus growled at being played.

Tyler enjoyed the joke for just a second before letting his face fall seriously. "I know what you were." he admitted in a weary monotone. He rose from his seat and wandered to the kitchen returning moments later with the bottle of Firewhisky and two teacups after failing to find proper tumblers. Severus was still sitting surprised at the table as Tyler poured a bit of the burning amber drink into each cup.

"When Dumbledore dropped him off I asked if it was you," Tyler paused apologetically. "I asked if you had killed them." Tyler was clearly having trouble replaying the night in his head. Severus's own stomach was wrenching at the memory of November 1st. Tyler drank back the contents of his glass with a hiss and poured himself another before he could continue, "I was so worried it was you and then he said it was…he said it was Sirius." The silence that followed stretched out. The pair had never been the biggest fans of Sirius Black, and James Potter had only grown on Tyler in the past few years, but they both knew, somewhere deep in their humanity what it meant that the one person James Potter trusted most in the world had betrayed him. The murderer wasn't Severus, who the pair had fought for years, it wasn't a Slytherin, it wasn't even a stranger, it was Sirius.

Tyler took in a steadying breath and forced out, "I'm not stupid Severus, between Sirius's hints and a few Daily Profit articles I figured out what you were at about the same time Lily said I couldn't visit you anymore." Tyler squinted at Severus and added. "That was only two years ago though, and you two hadn't spoken since fifth year." Severus moved to protest, out of old habit. He and Lily had been lying about their relationship to Tyler for years. He stopped himself however. Truths were spilling out left and right and he couldn't keep playing the old games with people who were gone.

Tyler was beginning to feel the alcohol warming his brain, clouding things up rather nicely. "That means I was visiting you well after you had joined up with the Death Eaters." Tyler concluded. He was trying to connect the dots for Severus, lead him to understanding. Before he could continue Harry toddled back over to demand something at his knee. Tyler easily picked the boy off the ground, rising to his own feet and smothering him with more kisses. To Severus it seemed like an automatic reflex Tyler had; Pick Harry up, kiss him on his chubby cheeks. Tyler mumbled something to the boy and set him quietly back down. Harry garbled a few words then toddled off toward the kitchen, surely in search of his quaffle toy, or the tuperware the child loved so much. Tyler followed him slipping onto the kitchen floor as Severus's mind reeled.

How could Tyler have known, how could he have shown up at his door anyway? Didn't he understand who the Death Eaters were, what they did? When Severus came home he was trying to sort out whether or not he should tell Tyler about what he had done. He was planning a test. If Tyler could stand even being in the same room with him after hearing what he had done it would be a miracle, but here he was, sitting on his kitchen floor seemingly unfazed by the largest revolution Severus felt he could throw at him. The image of eleven-year-old Harry floated back up and Severus slowly rose to his feet and moved around the table to stand at the kitchen door.

"I visited you, year after year, and you never harmed a hair on my head." Tyler looked up at him with wild confusion in his eyes. "Lily would have done anything, and I mean anything for me. James would have followed. The whole damn Order would have been up in arms to rescue me if you had so much as handcuffed me to a pipe in your house. I would have been perfect bait." Harry had wandered over to Tyler to pick at his hair and poke his chubby fingers at his mouth. Tyler took it in stride smiling and nipping his finger playfully, absorbed again in the small child. "Dumbledore said the Death Eaters didn't know I existed, which is odd if you were one of them." Tyler turned his attention from Harry to stare with two watery eyes up at him.

The alcohol seemed to be seeping into the younger boy but Severus didn't feel nearly drunk enough. He turned, pulled the Firewhisky off the table and entered the kitchen. With an exasperated sign he slipped down until he was on the floor next to Tyler. Harry immediately climbed around and fell into Severus lap his toes wiggling on Tyler's lap. Bright green eyes blinked up at him. Severus tried to relax as Harry cooed up at him, but it was hard to breathe with him there. The uncanny glow that seemed to follow Harry around was warming him from the inside in a way the Firewhisky wasn't. Severus relaxed slowly into the cabinet.

After a few moments of silence Tyler moved and Severus tensed again, worried he would pull Harry up off his lap, but instead he whispered, "I was supposed to trust _Sirius_ , but you're the one who has always been there for me."

The words struck Severus, "Always?" He wondered aloud. He didn't feel like it. He felt like he had repeatedly failed the Evans family. If he had truly always been there he would have been able to save Mrs. Evans and Lily- wonderful Lily- before anything bad happened to them.

"Always." Tyler confirmed. "and now you have a chance to take care of the most important part of Lily's life and I have to believe that you would never hurt him. I trust you." Tyler's eyes didn't waver from Severus's.

Severus's heart constricted painfully. "You mean that?" He had to be sure, he had to be 100% sure that Tyler trusted him, that there was even the slimmest chance that years from now Harry could trust him too.

"I'm terrible at lying Sev." Tyler reminded. They stared at one another until Tyler asked, "So you'll watch him?"

There it was, the question. The big one- and they were both a little drunk and both leaning heavily against the kitchen cabinets and Harry was curled up asleep on their laps, his chest rising and falling peacefully as he slept, and there were all the possibilities splayed out before him immense and intimidating.

"Yeah, I'll watch him." He finally realized aloud, because he had known all along that he would say "yes".

Then he didn't even argue as Tyler slumped onto his shoulder, exhausted and relieved.

* * *

 _A/N #2 This is definitely the end of part 1. Part two remains to be seen. It depends on if the plot bunnies or muses come to my rescue. Thank you so much for reading and enjoying._


	7. Intermission: Deleted Scene

**Long Authors note to follow:**

1) Hello lovely readers. So many "thank yous" for all of your support especially **ORKCHILD** whose carrots were probably the sweetest review I've ever received. The plot bunnies were appeased.

2) Part two has a plot and several scenes thanks to you all. I'm in the midst of getting the rest of the scenes fleshed out, written up and polished - so part two is on its way! Until then I thought I would try to thank you with a deleted scene. It just didn't fit into part one, and it certainly won't fit in part two. I loved some of the banter and the situation too much to delete it though. There's something dumb and sweet about it. It's a little rough but I hope you enjoy.

3) **excessivelyperky** asked why Tyler got Harry instead of the Dursleys. There is a hopefully clarifying scene in Part Two but an explanation won't spoil anything. Sorry this wasn't clearer and also answering will give some context for this scene so here goes:

At some point Mrs. Evan's must have died. Though most canon has it that both parents died of perfectly normal muggle things, in this AU Death Eaters attempted to get to Lily through her family. Knowing Severus knew her from childhood they asked him to confirm that Lily's mother and sister were still alive and then confirm their whereabouts. He couldn't lie, because they had Mrs. Evan's old address, and they would kill him if he lied. So he confirmed Mrs. Evan's address to save himself, then pretended he didn't know where Petunia was, then and lied about Tyler's existence. Though he managed to get Tyler out of the house, he didn't manage to save Mrs. Evan's on the night of the attack. He blames himself for not protecting her. However, what he did accomplish was keeping Petunia safe, and hiding Tyler's existence all together.

Dumbledore gave Harry to Tyler because very few people even knew he existed. That added extra protection for Harry that Petunia couldn't offer. Tyler also had a history with Harry that Petunia didn't. The two were very close as Tyler spent quite a bit of time with Lily. Finally Dumbledore, though horribly strategic, could sometimes have a heart, and knew Tyler would be distraught without Harry in his life after losing so many people he loved.

This scene (which would have been a flashback) takes place a few days after Mrs. Evan's death. A little less than a year after Hogwarts graduation?

* * *

 _The funeral was lovely, and well attended. No one saw Severus pay his last respects from the far edge of the cemetery. Not Lily or the five boys who surrounded her. And then Severus spent the night drinking until he ran out or Firewhisky. Butterbeers and a bag of crisps were all that was left in his chilled cabinet, and he wasn't even sure why the crisps were there at all._

 _Thankfully it was a short walk to the corner store from his apartment and, starting to feel the pangs of hunger creep up on him, he prepared to make the walk there._

 _He left the building curled into his muggle clothing and would have made it to the store if a figure sitting cross legged against his apartment wall hadn't caught his attention. The teen was still half in his funeral garb; A white t-shirt and pants that had become too short in his recent growth spurt. Like Severus he too appeared to be out of alcohol. Next to him an empty bottle lay forgotten as he mumbled to himself._

 _Severus could have walked right by. He should have walked by, but instead he found himself asking, "Moss, what are you doing here?"_

 _"Ran out of alcohol…and money…and I pushed the button but you didn't answer…" Tyler pointed unsteadily at board of buttons and names next to Severus's apartment's locked front door._

 _"Which button? The one with my name on it?" Severus clarified._

 _Tyler looked back at him, trying not to betray his ignorance, then at the wall of call buttons where his eyes lingered a little longer on the large red emergency button at the bottom. "Apartments are confusing." He defended himself drunkenly. Severus squeezed his eyes shut hoping that when he opened them Tyler would have disappeared. Between Severus's blood alcohol level, actual wizardry and Tyler's muggle tricks, disappearance wasn't all that out of the question, but when he peaked through his eyes, Tyler was still stubbornly there._

 _"So you came here?" Severus asked lamely._

 _"I needed my brother." Tyler pouted._

 _"I'm not your br-"_

 _"I thought to myself, where should I go when everything sucks and I want to drink myself into a black hole!?" Tyler looked more upset then Severus had ever seen him. Which wasn't all that upset Severus admitted, but the kid had actually interrupted him, and he was close yelling, two things Severus had never witnessed._

 _"Tyler, you shouldn't be drinking yourself into oblivion-"_

 _"Everyone else is." Tyler countered and Severus took a minute to notice how upset Tyler truly looked. His eyes were puffy and red, and not just from drinking, he had been crying. "You have been." The teenager accused Severus in a slur. Severus's stomach flipped in pity and rage at the teen's circumstances. Tyler had lost his mother. Another piece of his soul had been ripped out of him._

 _"You have never done what everyone else is doing." Severus pointed out, trying to brush off the statement. Not sure what else to say._

 _"I know, and that's clearly not working. I've decided to be like you instead. I bet it hurts less."_

 _"Like me?" Severus wondered, but he didn't want to know the answer. The second Tyler started acting like him was the second Severus would lose complete faith in the world. Severus needed Tyler to stay upbeat, dumb Tyler, for his own sanity._

 _"Bitter!" Tyler whined. "A bitter level 10 on Lily and I's patented Severus-being-bitter scale!" Tyler declared loudly before flopping dramatically onto his back on the dirty concrete. "You don't have any feelings and that sounds nice."_

 _Severus was about to explain that Tyler couldn't be bitter, that he had already monopolized that defense mechanism but 'ignorant' and 'dim-whitted' were still up for grabs. Unfortunately, before he could get the words out Tyler had begun singing a morose song to the ripped apartment awning._

 _No._

 _No wait-that was Tyler's favorite love hit of 1970 "Can't Help Falling in Love with You." Merlin's beard the kid couldn't even be bitter when he was trying._

 _"Get up." Severus demanded. Tyler's head flopped to the side and he stared pathetically up at him. "Get up, come on." Severus moved back to the apartment's front door and began to pull out his keys. The teenager considered the proposition from the ground. He stared up for a few seconds then slowly groaned to his feet and lumbered over to Severus's side._

 _Back in the sparsely furnished apartment, Severus pulled butterbeers out of his fridge assuming a wizard brand would keep the boy from knowing how low the alcohol content was. Together they sat down on his ratty couch. "Why aren't you out drinking with_ them _?" Severus asked._

 _"Them- James's friends- them?" Tyler asked, a bit confused. Severus didn't really reply and Tyler eventually said, "Well firstly, because 'tall, dark, and mysterious' said wizard alcohol would turn me into a goblin." He explained, and Severus tried to repress a smile at Tyler's sarcastic description of Sirius. "Also they didn't know Mum like you did." Tyler said with a hiccup, all his emotions smeared on his face. Severus realized Tyler had hiding-one's-emotions confused with not feeling them at all. Tyler didn't want to_ be _Severus, he wanted to be as blank as Severus appeared on the outside._

 _"James bought me all my books for school next year." Tyler shrugged, changing the subject abruptly._

 _"So?"_

 _"So, maybe he's not as much of a toe-rag as you guys said he was?"_

 _Severus snorted and Tyler launched into another topic to avoid the bad blood between his friend and his brother-in-law to be. Tyler chattered, jumping from topic to topic, avoiding going too deep into anything, and never stopping. It was grating and mundane but Severus supposed he deserved it, as he had had a hand in killing his mother, and, he realized, a hand in making sure that the chatty teen was still alive to torture him another day. Maybe he needed to rethink his life choices? But the other side of him grudgingly recognized that he was comforted by the boy's presence. Sure he talked a lot, but occasionally he would actually say something dim enough to be funny and he would talk openly about his sister, and that, Severus selfishly knew, was what he really wanted; a brief glimpse of the past when everything was better…when he and Lily still had something._

 _The night wore on and Severus realized no one had told Tyler, either what had actually happened to his mother, or that Severus was on the side of the war that had committed it. He assumed Lily had her work cut out for her keeping Potter and his cronies from saying anything to the boy. But why? He didn't know, but he appreciated it nonetheless._

 _"Do you know why Lily and I don't talk anymore?" Severus asked suddenly, cutting into Tyler's extended tale about a girl named Megan from school._

 _Tyler cocked his head to the side and answered, "Sirius hints at it around me until Lily tells him to 'shut up', but I figure he's just talking about that bad word you called her. I figure Lily's just being dramatic… I mean you call me names all the time. I think the first words you ever said at me were 'Who's the skinny twat?'"_

 _"You were a skinny twat."_

 _"I was three."_

 _"It was true."_

 _Tyler's lips puckered, then almost twitched into a smile at the banter. "Doesn't matter though. I still like you." Severus glared up at the ceiling. Great, he had gotten the kid in his and Lily's friendship-divorce._

 _"You shouldn't like me." Severus told him._

 _Tyler shrugged and sipped at his Butterbeer. Severus decided not to say anything more, and Tyler eventually finished his story about Megan._

 _It was three in the morning when Severus finally said, "Come one, let's get you back to your sister's. She'll be worried." Severus pulled himself off the couch. Tyler had sobered a bit and was calming down. His rapid paced talking had slowed to a human speed, and his train of thought was almost logical._

 _"Meh, can't I stay here?" The teen begged.  
"Absolutely not." Besides not wanting to be caught with Lily Evan's little brother in his apartment Severus really didn't want to deal with him when he was hung over. "Come on. Sister Petunia still lives in Little Whinging with the walrus, right?" _

_Tyler groaned expansively and fell into the couch._

 _"This isn't an optional thing. I will curse you out of my house." Severus clarified. That seemed to motivate Tyler, but only slightly. Severus proceeded to drag and coerce him back to number four Privet Drive where social services had plopped him after his home had burnt mostly to the ground a few days ago. Petunia did not look pleased to be woken at 3:30 in the morning, but dragged her brother over the threshold nonetheless and Severus left quietly to return to his deadened apartment, very much alone, once again._


	8. Chapter 7: Ignore the Peril

**Part 2 !**

 _A/N Hey all, glad you're still here. :) Part two proved difficult (sequels and all that). A character driven story is complicated when the characters have already gotten somewhere, but I hope this holds up._

 _Please feel free to message with any minor edits as I'm being lazy about nit-pick editing._

 _Nonetheless... I present part two of "Because Tyler's a Stupid Name". Chapter one: Wherein Tyler and Severus argue…again. ;)_

* * *

 **Chapter 7: Ignore the Peril**

Harry James Potter's second birthday was on July 31st. From what Severus knew from short letter the party had been small. Just Tyler and Harry.

 _"_ _Mr. Dursely called to cancel. Dudley's sick and the begonia's need weeding. They sent a gift though!"_

Petunia, Severus suspected, had trouble looking at Harry; Had trouble being in the house where Lily had one lived, surround by pictures of the life Lily had left her for.

Merlin knew he did.

The letter had ended: _"Are you still interested in birthday cake on the 4_ _th_ _?"_

Tyler and Severus planned to celebrate the birthday a few days late, when Severus would be around anyway for the full moon. He wrote back a grudging "yes" but he suspected Tyler wouldn't be up to it. The moons had gotten better for a few months, but then July had been a disaster and Severus suspected nothing would be okay again until after Halloween. Anniversaries and dates kept pecking at Severus and Tyler. Lily's birthday in January, Harry's in July. October was looming and after that they started the countdown until Harry had lived longer with Tyler than his own parents. James and Lily were alive for exactly 15 months of Harry's life. Tyler had been Harry's guardian for almost 9 months now. The 15 month mark wasn't far off, and they were starting to wonder if Harry had any memories of his parents at all or if they had started drifting away to that place where dreams go when you wake up, and if that was okay.

They never said this aloud though. They skirted around it, leaving the conversation hanging at the end of accidental sentences that touched too close to the topic, in stories that trailed off when they remembered who had been there. There was an unspoken agreement not to fall apart. Not to cry, depend too much on the other.

Then again Tyler was too busy to break down, and Severus wasn't sure he could. So they moved through the motions of life, month after month, sleepwalking to survive. They pushed away their own tears as often as they wiped away Harry's. They bucked up and walked on, if not for Harry's sake, then their own.

But grief had a weird way of twisting a mind and Severus found himself concentrating his efforts not in sorrow or grief, but in haphazard worry. In unpinned fear.

In law and regulations.

There was too much contradicting information though. There were books, and pamphlets, and handouts. There were chapters in almost wholly unrelated books and entire volumes written well before anyone knew anything about werewolves. And that's where Severus found himself concentrating his grief: In rules and rumors about werewolves.

He had gotten his hands on as many pieces of information as he could without looking suspicious. Madam Pince knew he was simply interested in Defense Against the Dark Arts. She hadn't asked many questions, and now that he was a professor the restricted section was a Beast office didn't care what visitors did one way or the other and Severus had slipped more pamphlets up his sleeve in three minutes than he had read in his entire life. The Beings office was full of chatty witches who tried to drag him into conversations about the Daily Profit and the continuing Death Eater trials. He grabbed any related literature and snuck off as quickly as possible. The last thing he wanted was to talk about the trials.

But maybe the trials were just another reason he was burying himself in this work anyway? Avery had gotten off, and Narcissa had invited him around for tea. Maybe it was fear that the once-Death Eaters would find something out. That they would wonder about the wrong thing at the wrong time. That they would knock on his door on the wrong night. That because of them he would be the piece of Tyler's unsteady tower that would bring the whole thing crashing down.

He buried himself to ignore Tyler. To ignore how much he appreciated the pre made casseroles, artisan sandwiches and luscious pasta dishes that had been mysteriously filling his cabinets over the last seven months. He tore through books to bury the terrifying fact that he cared about the boy.

It came down to fear though. It was fear that motivated him. Fear that the Death Eaters or the ministry would catch Tyler and take Harry from them.

Someone had to be worried though. Tyler was too caught up with, if not raising a child, at least keeping it alive. The food he left around Severus's home like a well trained house-elf as thank yous was unnecessary, but Tyler was adamant, and Severus was hungry. He comforted himself knowing Hogwarts would be back in session in a month and Tyler would soon have no reason to waste his money on anything besides Harry. In fact in a few months Severus would have enough to begin sending food and goods in the opposite direction. Merlin knew they needed it. Harry had outgrown the small collection of clothes that had been rescued from Godric's Hollow, and though Petunia had lovingly offered up Dudley's hand-me-downs they were far from the right size for the scrawny toddler.

Severus rubbed a hand over his face. How had he gotten to this point? The point where he was worried about the clothes James Potter's son was wearing. The point where he was imagining spending his paycheck on toys and toddler food.

But that was his job wasn't it? The reason he was working at Hogwarts, the deal he had made with Dumbledore. Tyler had simply managed to pull him into a deeper layer of hell by asking him to babysit.

He breathed out an exasperated, dissapointed breath and looked across the room to the table of books he had amassed. They were all about werewolves and they were all contradictory. The laws about child guardianship, safety, spells, there were too many and yet not enough and Severus's head was spinning with the new knowledge. He knew that when it boiled down, there were no true laws, and whatever was written would be twisted in whatever direction a court wanted. If Tyler was ever caught Harry would be taken away from him quicker than you could say "Newt Scamander"

They had talked about it, of course. Severus had tried to tell Tyler time and time again to have a plan, something in case they found out about him being a werewolf. Something to protect him, but Tyler had shrugged it off, unconcerned. Protected as he usually was from the real world by others he didn't realize his peril.

There was nothing here that could protect them, and Severus knew it.

He needed a break.

A long one…but he knew it wasn't coming so instead he settled for running errands. He still needed to pick up a few potion materials from Knockturn Alley before the beginning of the semester, perhaps that would be enough of a distraction before he would spiral back into looking at all of this information again.

He checked his coin pouch to make sure he had enough for his purchases and left through the floo.

Knockturn Alley boiled under the hot August air. They hadn't seen rain in days and everywhere he looked plants seemed to be shriveling, not that plants in Knockturn Alley thrived, but they certainly weren't brown and scraggly all the time. The apothecary was squeezed between a shady fortune teller's office and a pawn shop that couldn't have sold much that wasn't stolen. Severus exhaled gratefully as he stepped out of the summer heat in to the dark of the store. The witch behind the counter barely flicked her eyes up from a copy of Witch Weekly. Blond tresses soon obscured her face from view and her black nails picked up their rhythmic taping on the dark wooden counter.

The entire place was dreary. To preserve many of the ingredients the windows had been spelled to black and the only light was from blue flickering candles placed too far apart down the many aisles. Severus pulled out his list and turned right into a maze of shelves lined with pickled limbs in jars of green and grey liquid. He read labels as he passed, admiring how well some of the ingredients were preserved, how fresh they looked, and how neatly they had been packaged. As disinterred as the store owner looked, she knew her stuff. He had only pulled one bottle from the shelf- as cool to the touch as a bottle of manticore fangs- when a voice hissed his name out of the shadows, sending the skin on Severus's back crawling away from the sound.

"Carrow." Severus replied, equally cooly.

There was a humorless laugh from the other end of the aisle before the lithe form of the man became visible. He had thinned out in the stress of the trials and if Severus wasn't mistaken there were strands of grey in the man's otherwise youthful brown hair.

"What brings you out of hiding. People have been saying you fell off the face of the earth." Carrow hissed. "Fell right off the earth and into the hands of Headmaster Dumbledick." Carrow's weak grey eyes were accusing.

Severus knew he needed to play his cards just right. He had been avoiding just these types of situations for over a year because of it. Yes, Dumbledore had gotten him off. Yes, in a way he was on Dumbledore's side, but the old wizard was also counting on him to keep in good standing with the less savory sides of the magical world. Up until now he had barely been keeping in touch with Mulciber and Avery, let alone the rest of the Death Eaters. In his defense most of the them were avoiding each other until the chips fell and they knew who was a safe associate with, but Severus had taken the silence to a new level.

"Just because I'm working for Dumbledore doesn't mean I've fallen off the face of the earth." Severus responded cooly.

"So it's true. You've gone soft, working for that old Buffoon."

"He is a buffoon, but he pays, and unlike your delightful girlfriend I'm not rotting in Azkaban so I don't see the problem with my situation. We don't all have parents who can buy our way out of prison." Severus sneered. "I see you've done well though, getting back into the ministry." Severus turned over a jar of a particularly gruesome looking specimen and pretended to read the tag.

"I'm managing." He licked his teeth in the way Severus particularly disliked. "We're actually rather busy at the moment, working on the trials."

"What would someone from the werewolf capture unit have to do with the trials." Severus asked. He hadn't kept close contact with any of Lord Voldemort's followers, but he had kept tabs on them. He picked out gossip where he could get it, reading between the lines in the daily profit and tuning his ears in when he was out and about. Carrow was in the werewolf capture unit, cruelly arresting those Voldemort had said he would protect. Meanwhile his sister was sharpening her teeth on other poor souls in the beast division. He had caught a glimpse of her when he visited, but managed to slip out of sight before being noticed. Severus knew Carrow had helped in the arrest of the once-leader of one of Voldemort's werewolf packs. That had been in an actual news article. It hadn't taken long Severus long to find that piece of information.

Carrow laughed a throaty laugh and reminded Severus, "Lupin is still on the loose, and he's wanted with ties to the ol' Sirius Black."

Severus's stomach dropped. He had almost completely forgotten about the werewolf. It was easier to pin all of his hatred on someone who was already rotting in Azkaban. To pin everything on Sirius Black, the man who had taunted him, almost killed him. The man who actually went through with murdering his best friend, and worse- Severus's heart still constricted after all these months- Lily Evans.

Severus suspected Remus had had something to do with the murders. How could he not? The marauders were thick as thieves and there was no way a werewolf, and the only living friend of Sirius' Black's, wasn't in on the scheme. Carrow's words lit a fire in Severus's heart, a new angry rage. He stuffed it deep down though, not letting it show on his face as he turned to the other man. "I'm sure he's a slippery one to catch. He was always very good at Defense Against the Dark Arts, probably because he had such an intimate knowledge of them."

"Hmm. You seem to know a lot about him." Carrow accused slyly.

"We were in the same year at Hogwarts, it was hard not to know these things." Severus restocked the a jar onto the shelf and stepped around Carrow. There were still things he needed to buy after all.

"You'll let me know then, if you here rumors of him?"

"Of course." Severus agreed honestly. Nothing would be more satisfying to him than turning Lupin into Carrow's cold evil little hands. Severus had seen what the man had done to muggle during the war. Now he would be constricted with the ministry's laws, but Carrow was creative, and Severus had faith that Lupin would get what was coming to him.

Carrow smiled, slipped back into the dark of the store and Severus finished his shopping as quickly as possible.

* * *

"B… That one." Severus's hand hovered over a bishop. "No the horsy one next to it." Tyler could see the fury rise in Severus's face at the misnaming of the chess piece. He flashed Severus a knowing smile that was not reciprocated and Severus moved his finger a few centimeters to the side and stared. Tyler nodded and answered with his voice still rough and nasally from the full moon two nights before, "Yup that one, like two forward and one that way." He pointed his index finger left and Severus moved the piece. It whinnied, pranced around. Off to the side Harry giggled and Tyler couldn't help but smile. The boy was growing, he must have shot up half an inch since he turned him over to Severus a few days ago. Tyler tried not to think about it. Instead he shut his eyes and worked his weary brain into remembering the series of moves he was planning next.

Tyler loved playing wizard's chess. None of the pieces listened to him, but they could still be moved manually when he wasn't wrapped in four layers of blankets on the couch. When he wasn't feeling awful he could even, sometimes, beat Severus at a match. The other man didn't find opportunities to play against others very often and to Tyler's amusement and Severus's shock he had found himself rather good at the game.

Across the table Severus directed his own bishop to destroy a rook and Tyler let his head drop against the couch. The rook crumpled and slouched off the edge of the board. Harry squealed and Tyler's head shot up from the cushion. That wasn't an amused laugh, it was an angry one. He managed to see the chess table just in time for two toddler hands to smash every piece off the board in a raging tantrum. "What on earth?" Tyler cursed, surprised at the venom in the kid's fight. Severus too seemed surprise, he backed off from the coffee table and watched the scene. Harry screamed again and slapped the table. Tyler untangled himself from the blankets, fighting sore muscles and bandages, to reach out and pull Harry's hands away. "No, Harry. No. Gentle." The boy screamed a little but didn't put up much of a fight. Instead he just whined as his arms were held high in the air. "Harry what's wrong." Tyler asked pulling the toddler up. Harry just fussed again, demanding to be put down, and when Tyler acquiesced the boy flopped onto the ground and poked at a grumbling and bewildered bishop.

Tyler sighed. "I guess that game's over." He realized. "Sorry."

Severus, still looking bewildered, nodded, but didn't say anything. Tyler just stared at the small boy as Severus began to pick up the pieces scattered on the ground. It was hard to piece apart what was going on in the mind of a two-year old. Sure these were the terrible twos, but he was also staring at a boy who had lost everything in the last year, and Tyler didn't know if he was acting worse than he should be. He slumped back onto the couch with a groan.

He stayed there until Severus had kindly replaced all the pieces into their small velvet bag and set the chess board back onto a high shelf. "Will you stay for dinner?" Tyler asked pulling Harry off the ground and onto his lap.

"I'll pass."

"I'll set you a place. It's casserole." Tyler replied. He struggled to his feet one again, still holding Harry. "Lord boy when did you swallow a bowling ball?" Harry felt heavy in his weak arms and by the time they reached the door to the kitchen Tyler had set him back on the ground with a groan. He limped the rest of the way into the kitchen and pulled three plates from a cabinet. "you want something to drink?" He called into the living room.

"I'm not staying." Severus reminded.

"Lemonade it is."

"I have things to get done."

"I know, I know, you have a busy life." Tyler grumbled.

"I actually have to have everything in my new office before next week." Severus reminded.

"School doesn't start for a month."

"Next week." Severus repeated, entering the kitchen.

"So. That's next week." Tyler countered.

"Yes, and there's a lot of packing that needs done before then."

"Do it after you eat." Tyler insisted. He limped across the room and pulled a still half-frozen casserole from the counter. He hobbled back to the oven and slipped the dish in, cranking the heat up and hoping it warmed quickly.

Behind him Severus had unconsciously pulled a piece of paper from a mess of documents from the kitchen table. A tactic for not leaving, but also not agreeing to stay.

"Looking at my mess." Tyler smirked.

"You are a true slob." Severus replied without thinking. He was suddenly very interested in the sheet of paper.

"Sorry. I didn't get that cleaned up before everything went funny." Tyler half-heartedly apologized. He reached out for the paper, but Severus didn't release it. Tyler looked down and remembered that everything on the table wasn't just junk mail, but it was also the bills and bank statements from the last few months. He snatched the sheet from Severus's hand leaving a small piece of white paper clutched between the man's fingers. Tyler quickly gathered everything up and heaved it onto the counter out of Severus's line of site, and out of the way. Before the other man could talk Tyler handed over a stack of plates and began pulling silverware from a drawer. "Here make yourself useful." He commanded. Severus's head tilted sideways, a clear sign of interest, but he followed Tyler's instructions, setting out three places at the table.

"You want some toast." Tyler asked wincing as he reached to pull bread from a top counter. Harry was fussing at his ankles.

"Toast? I thought we were having Casserole."

"We are, but Harry wants toast, and he's been pretty exclusively eating that for three days so…" Tyler shrugged and painstakingly untwisted a tie from the end of the bread bag. His fingers were still betraying him with joint pain and shakes. Severus watched him struggle and couldn't help but remember the days Lupin would come to potions class almost completely unable to work. Crushing herbs and slicing roots was an unachievable task so on bad days they were delegated to one of his other friends, often an enthusiastic Sirius Black.

As he pulled a slice from the package the conversation with Carrow from a few days ago rose to the top of Severus's mind. He hadn't wanted to bring it up until Tyler was feeling better again, but the boy seemed well enough, and likely Severus wouldn't see him again until the next moon. It was now or never. "Have you had any contact with Lupin." The question had been curled in the back of his mind since his conversation with Carrow. If Lupin would show up anywhere it would be here, and it would be around Harry's birthday.

Tyler glanced over at Severus then turned away. "No, why?" Harry grabbed at Tyler's shorts and the older boy plucked the bread from the toaster, slathered jam onto it and handed half down to Harry who began chewing on it happily.

"He's disappeared." Severus clarified. Wouldn't the boy know as much as him? By the looks of the Daily Profits littering the house, the boy read the news as often as he did, but what Severus always had that Tyler would never, was the rumor mill. The constant journey of information passing from mouth to mouth in the wizarding world. Severus stood up straight and crossed his arms. Tyler watched him carefully as he leaned into the counter to protect his leg from further injury. "Not a word from him." Tyler took a bite from the other half of the bread. "He basically lived here, if anyone was going to see him it would be me, and nada." Severus eyed the young man suspiciously. Tyler made an act of eyeing him back until a smile cracked across his face,"No one has seen Remus is months." He laughed out. The tone was somewhere between upset and disinterested. Severus knew Tyler had always like Remus, even when he was still adjusting to life with Lily's new friends. Severus also knew that tone, knew his half laughing answer; Tyler was lying.

"Moss, You do know he's wanted…that we're looking for him?"

Tyler shuffled, fidgeted until he winced and had to fall against the counter, and Severus could certify Tyler's guilt. "I might have heard that people think he was in league with Si-" The name slurred out in Tyler's mouth. Severus rarely heard Tyler say the name out loud anymore. He would always try but the words got lost between his teeth and his confidence, as if saying the name aloud would make the man appeared before them. Would make the tragedy of last October real again.

"Sirius Black." Severus finished strongly for him, brash and unafraid of the name.

Tyler nodded, his attention now on the floor…A flame of worry lit in Severus, if Remus had been here and Tyler didn't know he was in league with Sirius then Harry was in danger. Severus began scanning the room as if he could find some evidence of the werewolf's presence, some crack where Sirius Black's best friend could sneak through to take the last piece of Lily Evan's away from them.

"Sev?" Tyler prompted, dragging Severus back into the current conversation and away from his near neurotic panic. "Remus is a good guy."

"No. He is a werewolf. He was here wasn't he?" Severus demanded.

"No." Tyler answered too quickly. Severus wanted to growl at him. The boy was incapable of believing someone evil. He wondered how long it took the boy to grow his current venom he had toward Sirius. He wouldn't believe Remus a Death Eater until the evidence was standing in front of him, dancing. On the other hand Severus knew that Tyler would tell him anything. If Lupin had been here he had told Tyler, very clearly, that he couldn't tell anyone about the visit. Tyler must have been sworn to secrecy.

"Tyler if he was here you need to tell me." Severus insisted. "If he was working with Sirius he will be after Harry."

"He's not after Harry."

"So he _has_ been here!?" Severus stormed.

"I didn't say that!"

"Moss." Severus was doing his best to bore holes into Tyler's forehead with his glare.

"He wasn't working with Si- that guy" Tyler repeated, dumbfounded. "Remus couldn't have done that." Tyler didn't need to snap or yell, he had an innocent conviction that kept defensiveness from his voice. He stuffed the last quarter of bread into his mouth and hobbled to the oven.

"MOSS!"

"Sev." Tyler countered through a mouthful of jam-covered bread.

"Tyler Rodrick Evans I swear on Merlin's grave if you've been sneaking that good-for-nothing-"

"I HAVEN'T." Tyler said again, looking and sounding just as he had at eight while trying to convince his mother he hadn't eaten the last cookie. "I just don't understand why people think Remus was in on this." Tyler held Harry back as he checked the casserole. "He's never hurt a fly. He saved my life, several times, and was always nice to me, and he had nothing to gain from joining the Death Eaters."

Severus breathed in, and out, trying to calm himself from the sheer furry caused by Tyler's naivety. "Do you think it's a little…odd… that Remus is the only one of James's friends who's still alive?"

"No. Why bother killing him, and _he_ was probably scared of Remus, because he was so good at wandy-fighting." The look Severus gave him should have melted Tyler's skin, but the boy was too busy contemplating the ceiling, trying to remember the word "dueling." He shut the oven door and added, "And he was in the North when it happened…" His eyes dropped, returned to meet Severus's, "Sev, he couldn't have done it…"

Severus realized he wasn't going to win this argument with logic. Lupin was apparently still very firmly on Tyler's good side, so instead he turned and walked out of the room. If he couldn't win the argument he could at least put up some protection. He pulled two of the stronger spells from his memory and cast them. Frustrated that he couldn't just spell the place down with anti dark-creature wards without casting Tyler out as well, he put up every other protection spell he could think of. "You will have to change the password on your floo", he began to rattle off a list of instructions at Tyler. "You are going to need to invite people into your house before they can enter, and if you hear a high pitched siren at some point it means someone has broken through the security perimeter. Likely by apparating. I'll set it off when I visit, but I won't mind as can turn it off. I've set it to alarm my wand when it goes, therefore I'll know if someone's broken in." Tyler picked Harry off the floor and followed the seemingly deranged wizard around the house as he set up the siren squealing protection charm. Tyler limped through three rooms before becoming too tired to continue. He leaned heavily against the bathroom doorframe and sighed, "Severus this is rediculous, Dumbledore's put protections on this place.

"Passive ones." Severus mumbled, annoyed, under his breath. If he had been in charge of protection charms he would have been much more serious about it.

"No one is going to harm Harry."

Severus continued to drag a blue flicking string of protective light along the wall of the house."Not any more at least" he continued his mumbling.

"Okay you just finish up with that, I'm going to pull the casserole from the oven. You want birthday cake or do Harry and I get all of it?"

"I'm not eating with you."

"I'll cut you a very small slice."

Severus just mumbled as he continued his work. His worry once again replacing any possibility of grief.


	9. Chapter 8: The Graveyard

**Chapter 9: The Graveyard**

Severus found himself circling his table again two weeks later. Everything was spread out, piled meticulously. He didn't think anything new had been added. Even with two new books and a few replicated documents from the Ministry's law office nothing had dissuaded his fear. "I can't believe I am at this again." He pushed a large stack of papers to the side and pulled an empty cardboard box up from the floor. He needed to continue packing for his move to Hogwarts. A little over two weeks and he would be gone from this place for ten months. Good Riddance. He walked into the living room and began scanning his bookshelves again for anything he might want or need. He took his copy of his sixth and seventh year potions books from their place and walked them into the kitchen.

He was setting them gently into the box when the whir of an alarm went off above his mantle in the living room. Severus whipped his wand from the pocket of his robe and stepped into the living room where Tyler was heading straight toward him.

"Moss, what the hell are you doing here?" Severus tried to surreptitiously steer Tyler into staying in the living room, and away from the piles of papers on the kitchen table.

Steering him turned out to be easier than expected, he didn't seem to care where he was standing or where he was flinging his belongings. Upon re-entering the living room he tossed a haphazardly packed bag by the coffee table, slung Harry out of his arms and onto the floor. Harry teetered for a half second before stumbling forward and cheerily smiling into Severus's billowing black robes. Severus's attention flitted from the boy up to Tyler who ran his hands down the sides of his jeaned legs.

"Tyler, what's going on?" Severus's mind immediately went to raids, threats, any emergency reason Tyler would have to drop the boy off, mid-week without a full moon in sight.

"Nothing, I just-" Tyler didn't' finish the thought but pressed his thumb and finger into his eyes as if plugging them from tearing up. Severus didn't mind the action, the last thing he needed was Tyler crying.

Harry's guardian quickly composed himself then let his hands fall to his hips. "There was a thing… And no.. No, you know what-" He tried and failed to lie then spat out the truth, his voice raspy with emotion, "Sev, he called me dad. He called me dad and I can't deal-" Tyler took in a choked breathe, "I can't deal with that right now so you have to- can you just take him for a few minutes."

Tyler hadn't broken down. At Severus's weary instance neither of them had fallen apart since the fight at Tyler's place back in November. How could they? No, they both mucked along on the game of life too stressed and shocked to fall apart.

"Up" Harry was pulling on his robes, insistent and needy as always. "Up" another yank.

"Harry, be patient." Severus ordered. "Tyler it's fine." But just as quickly as he had left Harry on that first night nine months ago, Tyler disappeared once again, but this time he had his whits about him enough to use the floo.

Severus sighed, once again he was left standing alone in his living room with a child. Although on this occasion he was not nearly as afraid of the child. He looked down at the black haired toddler smiling in the middle of the room and sighed.

"UP" the boy insisted and Severus grumbled to himself.

"I clearly need to get you a broom so you have something else to order 'up' to."

Severus dragged the boy up in one movement and carried him back across the room. "You can stay in the kitchen while I put these reading materials away. How long do you think your useless guardian will need to mope around before getting his act together?" Severus tried to lace his worlds with distain but he was surprised to hear how worried he truly sounded. "Dad", Harry had called Tyler. He set Harry onto the kitchen floor and looked at the small child. It couldn't be unusual for a child to expect a father figure, and Harry couldn't possibly have many memories of James. Severus was embarrassed to feel a wave of joy in him at the dignifier he had given Tyler before he realized that if Harry didn't remember James he surely couldn't remember Lily. Brilliant green eye stared up at him expectantly. "I need to put my books away" he cut Harry off and turned back to his work in the dining room. Behind him Potter's child banged unsuccessfully at the cabinet doors. Sticking charms, Severus smiled to himself as he swept all the brochures back into a folder and set it atop the stack of books.

Harry was dragging a chair from the dining room table to the kitchen when Severus levitated the final tall stack of books into a back closet. He returned to find Harry halfway onto his counter and moving fast. "No" Severus drawled, crossing the space in two long strides and wrapping an arm around Harry's stomach and lifting him up. "Troublemaker. You may not remember Potter, but you're just like him."

He carried a struggling Harry back into the living room and levitated a dark chest off a top bookshelf. The lock was thick metal and only breakable at his or Harry's touch. When they finally tore into the dark wooden box it was filled to the brim with toys and children's books. A stuffed quaffle like the one he had at Tyler's sat at the top, something Severus had sent away for under a pseudonym. He plucked it up and handed it down to Harry who snatched it up happily and cuddled it under his pudgy arm. But it wasn't what Harry wanted. He waited beside the coffee table where the box sat just out of his reach and waited. Severus moved a few blocks aside, below them were muggle toys Tyler had passed on and had probably gotten second-hand from Petunia. Blocks and books, a few trinkets; Severus considered his options until Harry grew impatient, reached his hand up to the coffee table and demanded, "moo-ey".

"Ah." Severus realized. He snapped up the first book he found and settled onto the floor. "Book." Severus corrected as Harry backed himself up and flopped onto Severus's leg.

"Moo-ey" Harry explained. Severus wanted to groan, Harry was quite defensive and sure of himself for such a small human. On his lap the toddler proceeded to open the book with no grace or respect for the tinsel strength of paper. "Moo-ey" he repeated, slapping the first colorful page he landed on.

"Book." Severus said one more time before giving up on the losing battle and beginning to read.

* * *

Godric's Hollow shone with Summer sun. A dandelion had popped through the bricks of the sidewalk to wink up at the sunlight conspiratorially. The hedges were just scruffy enough for Tyler to know they had grown quicker than the relaxed citizens cared to keep up with, but not scruffy enough to make the homes look abandoned. The few people out and about shuffled along in an easy summer stroll.

Tyler swallowed a sob. Tears felt like a weight in his throat, a monster trying to claw its way out of him. He sped up; Over the cobbles across the street, averting his eyes from the obelisk and the names carved into it, and to the graveyard of St. Clementine. In his frantic state the gate latch tripped him up. His fingers fumbled and fought against the tired metal longer than he wanted but it eventually gave way allowing him to trip into the graveyard beyond.

His heart slowed, as the gate clinked shut behind him, his feet stopped, and suddenly he was wondering if he really wanted to be here after all. He hadn't visited since the funeral. He tried to pretend that he hadn't had the time or energy to bring Harry there. That he didn't want to put Harry in danger by bringing him to the gravesite, but in all honesty he had been nervous about what he would find. His stomach churned as he took a cautious step further in. He remembered exactly where they were buried. Despite his sleep deprivation at the time the funeral was seared into his brain. That day and the few conversations leading up to that day were vivid, burnt into his memory even while the following month was little more than a nauseous blur.

 _"_ _Just give me five seconds Dumbledore. Please."_

 _"_ _Pardon?"_

 _Tyler knew that face, and he knew the only words that could come out of someone's mouth at two in the morning. "Just don't say it yet." He pleaded, shutting his eyes. "If you say it then it's real and you can't take it back anymore. Then it's all real." Tyler pressed his hand into the side of the counter until he could feel the edge cutting into his hand. Not enough to draw blood but enough to keep his emotions in check. Slowly he regained his breath, opened his eyes and stared at the boy on Hagrid's lap, glanced at Dumbledore, then turned back to the stove to pour the tea._

 _He handed a glass to each of the men, the mugs shaking on their saucers._

 _He rubbed his hands on his jeans then pried Harry off the giant's lap before falling back into the counter, clutching the boy like a lifeline. He breathed in Harry's hair, baby shampoo, his clothes Lily's favorite detergent, lilac. Dumbledore took a slow sip of this tea and watched with understanding eyes as Tyler prepared himself for the news. He seemed to be talking to himself between shaking breaths. After what felt like years Tyler looked up and met Dumbledore's eyes._

 _"_ _Go for it." He requested, as if asking for nothing worse than the check at a restaurant._

 _"_ _I believe you already know what I am about to say." Dumbledore whispered._

 _Tyler jerked a nod, but when he opened his mouth to agree no words came out, he was only choking._

 _"_ _Lily and James died a few hours ago, they were attacked by Voldemort." Tyler slammed his mouth shut before a sob could escape. A strange motor sound curled up in his throat. He nodded along."Lily's love has protected Harry from a great curse and Harry himself has been the catalyst for the death of the man who has been terrorizing our world and yours for many years."_

 _There was silence until Tyler had to ask. "What happens to Harry?" He held the boy in his arms like a life raft._

 _"_ _So long as Harry lives under the same roof as someone who shares the blood of Lily Evans, he will be safe."_

 _"_ _Petunia or I?" Tyler clarified, his brow creasing as he tried to follow a conversation heavily laden in magical jargon._

 _Dumbledore nodded and Tyler's face scrunched further into confusion. "So Petunia?" he pressed, certain his older, married sister would get custody._

 _"_ _A friend of the family has convinced Lord Voldemort's followers that you do not exist. Besides the wards I will be placing around your home, that in and of itself will be your greatest protection."_

 _Dumbledore finished his tea quietly and Tyler mulled over the information. "I have Harry." He finally internalized._

 _"_ _As long as you can." Dumbledore agreed quietly. Tyler nodded, understanding the quiet warning."but I should get going." Dumbledore finished. He took a last drink of his tea then got slowly to his feet. With a wave of his wand he cleaned and put away both his and Hagrid's cups._

 _The pair walked slowly toward the door until Tyler stopped them. "Wait Dumbledore…" The boy paused, thinking, then spat it out, "How though?" He meant how did they die. How could something like that happen, they were so protected, and Dumbledore understood._

 _Sadness flashed across the old Headmaster's face. "It seems they were betrayed by a friend."_

 _"_ _Severus?" Tyler wondered, remembering Lily asking him not to visit their old neighbor anymore, but Dumbledore shook his head and replied sadly,_

 _"_ _Sirius."_

Tyler's feet took him straight to Lily and James. Out of a pile of flowers were two grey headstones standing sentinel over two perfect green graves. Tyler felt immediately lightheaded. He slumped to the ground before he could float away. His body was detached. He stared- for he didn't know how long- at the graves, wondering why he was there, and what he wanted.

Knots grew in his stomach until a word forced its way out of his mouth, "hey" He croaked. He expected the sound to be jarring in the quiet cemetery, but it felt just right. "Hey" He tried again, but this time the world demanded more and he continued, "Hey Lily… James… I'm- I'm Sorry I haven't visited much…" The reality of where he was sitting hit Tyler like a sudden summer storm. He pressed the palms of his hands into the ground, trying to hold himself steady but it was no use, his emotions were raging away without his consent. He subconsciously looked around himself for Harry, if he could focus on Harry he could reign in the tears and the fear, but Harry was nowhere to be found. His nephew was probably eating through Severus's entire frozen pea collection as he sat there. Was this the first time he had been away from the boy in almost a year? Tyler's fingers twined themselves in the thick grass. "I'm so sorry Lily." Tyler folded over, let tears he had been holding in all afternoon, if not for the past nine months run down his cheeks and fall to the ground. There was no stopping them. It was a loosing battle. Sobs stole his voice.

He could do nothing but let himself cry out until he could cough out his next words, "I'm taking care of Harry the best I can, I swear. I swear, Lily"

Tyler sucked in air around his words. He sounded horrible, like a drowning man, felt a bit like it as well, but he had to tell them everything. Everything about Harry, and life, and what they had missed. He told them stories between his tears. He talked about Harry's second birthday party with only him and Severus in attendance. He knew James would have been horrified, but what could the man do now but haunt him? And honestly Tyler wouldn't mind much if he did. At least then Harry could see his father. He talked about Harry's new hobbies and quirks. He told them that the boy's hair still stuck up in 20 cowlicks just like James's and that he needed new glasses and pants and shirts, and that he was growing too fast. Everything spilled out onto the ground, until he looped back around to stories from the past month.

"He recognized Remus when he showed up to our front door." Tyler coughed. "He looked terrible. Man James you need to be here for him too. Could barely get him to take a sandwich with him when he left. He just came by to apologize for being gone so much, but I can't imagine he'll come back." Tyler hiccuped, "Harry still calls books 'Moo-ey'." Tyler smiled at the memory. "But um- Remus couldn't stay long enough to read him a story. He left in a hurry." Tyler rubbed his running nose on his sleeve. "And then today Harry called me dad." He admitted. The words sounded hollow and horrible. Tyler didn't know how to think about it, didn't know how to explain it to Lily and James, instead of trying he just said "sorry", and folded his hands in his lap. There was nothing else to say for everything that had gone wrong.

When the tears dried he rubbed salt from his cheeks and admitted, "God, I'm a mess" though he finally felt light- not lightheaded- but as if a heavy weight had been taken from his shoulders. He took several long breaths then glanced up at the sky. The sun was sneaking toward the horizon. Severus would be worried about him, or at least annoyed that he'd been gone so long. He rose gingerly to his feet, wobbly after sitting so long, and brushed off his pants. "I'll try to visit sooner next time." He promised, then turned to head home, to find his nephew, to get back to life.


	10. Chapter 9: The Arrest

**Chapter 10: The Arrest**

Alastor Moody had had a long day. It began at four with crashing trash bins on his lawn. It had rolled on to an emergency at the office an hour later, new recruits getting jumpy about dark activity up north and after returning three hours later drenched and empty-handed the regular work day was already in full swing where he was overdue at several trials for Death Eaters. Now, late at night, after a worthless stake-out, he wanted nothing more than to put his feet up and enjoy a nice meal, possibly from the leaky Cauldron, he deserved a night out, a nice drink. But his plans were blasted away with a tentative knock on the door.

Moody made a strangled noise at the disruption to his daydreaming. The quill he wasn't aware he was still holding scrawled a long black line across a half-written report. "Come in." He yelled at the closed door, beckoning a man in Department of Magical Law Enforcement robes through the door.

"Sir." The young man began.

"Get on with it, I'm not getting any younger." Moody growled, doing his best to smear away the excess ink on the sheet. He pulled his wand out and the young man swallowed nervously.

"I'm just fixing my report, no need to be so jumpy."

"Rig-Right sir. Well, we have some information you might be interested in."

"Hm." Moody responded noncommittally. He wasn't about to get dragged into a conversation for anything less than an actual Death Eater. It was too late in the evening and he was too tired for Merlin's sake.

"Sir."  
"Boy if you keep up this beating around the bush, I'm going to transform you into a roach and keep you in my drawer with the last person who wasted my time."

"They found someone who's in contact with Remus Lupin!" He finally spat out and suddenly Moody was very much interested. He perked up in his seat.

"How sure are you? We've had leads before…"

"I don't know. The guards said they heard him at the graveyard…" Moody glared at the man's use of a vague location. He couldn't do anything with vague information. "That is, I mean- the Potter's grave…"

"Merlin's beard." Moody growled. "Do we have a team together, are we heading out? Do you already have the person in custody?" He wasn't sold on the information. He wasn't sold on much of anything at this point, but he was willing to try. His hunger could wait, his drink and lounge chair had all but left his mind. Finding Lupin would mean getting one more Death Eater off the streets so he could deal with putting relaxation back a few hours.

"No we were waiting to get you actually." The young man swallowed. Moody's suspicions rose horribly in his throat.

"Why?" He asked slowly. He was high up in the ranks, but nothing special…unless it had something to do with The Order.

"It's Tyler Evans, sir." The young man choked out.

"Shit."

* * *

Tyler was drooling into his pillow. He realized this as soon as he blinked awake and peeled his face off his superman pillowcase. Something had woken him and his brain suspected it was Harry without any proof to back it up. He flung his legs over the side of his bed, wiped the side of his face with the back of his hand and, still half asleep, tiptoed over and around the toys and clothes on the floor. He padded right up to the edge of Harry's small bed, managing only to stub his toe and step on a sharp corner once or twice.

Harry lay asleep sprawled out only half under a blanket and clad in a pair of green footie pajamas Severus swore didn't mean anything. Tyler smirked remembering long camping trips trapped between Lily kicking him and Petunia rolling over to sleep on his pillow. Harry slept like an Evans.

But sleep he did. Tyler bent down over Harry, touched his bed bedraggled hair and kissed his forehead reassured that the toddler was still fast asleep. Maybe the boy had kicked or spoken something. Perhaps that had falsely woken Tyler, or maybe it was just a dream. Tyler yawned, satisfied that Harry was fine and turned to head back to his own bed. He made it two steps when the noise that had woken him finally sunk in. An alarm?

A pulsing alarm!

His eyes opened wide and realized the walls were swirling with electric blue, the same color they had swam when Severus was frantically putting up wards a few weeks ago. Tyler's whole body clenched in fear. He felt like he had just fallen from a cliff onto his bedroom floor. The details of the room became clear and hyper-focussed in his state of terror. The wooden door, old furniture, the faded yellow walls all crystalized.

Why was an alarm going off!

Tyler spun back around to look into Harry's bed, stumbled the few steps back to him and and pulled him from underneath his sheets. The small boy let out a weak whine but when he blinked and saw that it was only Tyler holding him he dropped his head back onto his uncle's shoulder with a soft sigh. There was unwavering trust there, and comfort in his uncle's arms.

Tyler pinched his eyes shut and listened knowing that whatever came he needed to protect Harry. Were those footsteps on the first floor, a door opening? He wrapped Harry against himself and opened his eyes. Severus would want him to find a weapon. Something to defend himself. Isn't that what he had tried to tell him during one of his many lectures on safety. A weapon seemed extreme. More that likely the intruder was just a neighbor needing help, or Severus himself coming over late at night to check on him.

Nonetheless his mind buzzed with questions. What should he do? Who would it be at the bottom of the stairs, who could get past both Dumbledore and Severus's wards? Then he heard the definitive noise of voices below. His breath hitched and he held Harry tighter to himself, unconsciously covering the boy's head with his hand.

"Dammit."

The voices continued and it was clear that whoever was downstairs was between them and any escape- be it the floo or the front door.

Tyler turned in a small, careful circle, searching for another way out. The room had one small window, but nothing below it to catch them. He regretted not buying a fire ladder when he had the chance. He took a tentative step toward the door knowing in a flight or fight situation, flight was out of the question.

"Tyler Evans?" They knew his name. A flicker of optimism passed through his mind. Perhaps whoever it was, was there on a benevolent mission…

"Tyler, get your arse out here, we need to talk."

Did Tyler recognize that gruffly voice? It rang familiar, but he couldn't pull up a face or name to match.

"Tyler!"

A stair thumped, then creaked, an uneven gait. Tyler didn't say a word. They would find him eventually. The owner of the voice was coming up the stairs, then hitting the landing. The door of the one other room on the second floor squeezed open. Tyler waited with baited breath, the door shut, and Tyler heard the intruder on the landing. They hadn't bothered entering the other room and there was only one other option.

Tyler sucked in a breath, hoping to disappear. The knob of his bedroom turned. The door opened.

"Tyler Evans." The wide imposing figure of Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody nodded to him from the door, flickering blue light barely illuminating his dirty maroon robes. The auror was just as Tyler remembered, haggard, hair as wild as a lion's mane, eyes pinched with suspicion.

"Mad-Eye? Thank God." Tyler's grip on Harry stayed firm, but he felt his breathing slow just a bit. If Moody was there he was certainly there to help. The auror frowned at his use of the nickname, not expecting to hear it from a muggle lips, then took one more step into the room and shut the door behind him. "What's going on?" Tyler looked down at his alarm clock for the first time. It was midnight.

Moody considered him, barefoot, in pajama bottoms and one of James's hand-me-down band t-shirts. Tyler expected a greeting, but instead Moody jumped straight to the point, "Where is Lupin." His voice wasn't unfriendly, but Tyler heard urgency in the words.

Tyler flustered, "Remus?" The scars on Moody's face stood out stronger in the blue light as Tyler's eyes adjusted to the darkness. He couldn't help his rising panic.

"Where is he, boy?" Moody asked again.

"Not here." Tyler tried.

"Are you sure?" Moody was skeptical, as if he already knew the answer and was waiting for Tyler to come clean.

Tyler glanced around his surroundings as if expecting the other werewolf to pop out and surprise him. "Yeah." He answered with some confusion.

Moody nodded and took a step into the room. His attention bore a hole in every corner, every nook and cranny of the small bedroom, and Tyler briefly wondered if the man could see through walls. He didn't seem to have any intention of opening Tyler's drawers or rummaging through his chests. Perhaps he already knew their contents.

"You have seen him recently though haven't you?" Moody grumbled once he had gotten within a few feet of Tyler.

"Who? Remus? No, not since the funeral." Now Tyler was caught. He was a terrible liar, and now he was caught. The werewolf wasn't here… but he had been. He wondered if the wizard could see back in time as well as through walls. Tyler blinked a bit too rapidly. If Moody was anything like Severus he could see the lie etched in every inch of Tyler's face. Moody growled and stared, but didn't say a word. Tyler's mouth felt dry with nerves. He had promised Lupin not to give him away, for both of their sakes, and he meant to stand by his word.

"Oi, Moody!" Tyler had been so caught up he hadn't heard the footsteps of a second auror on the stairs. A young man, clad similarly to Moody in maroon robes popped his head into the room, "We found a basement room, werewolf containment spells, seems fresh." Goosebumps rose on Tyler's arms. If Severus had told him once he had told him a dozen times, werewolves were banned from living in homes with children let alone raise them. Worse than them weaseling Remus's whereabouts out of him was them weaseling his own condition out. Moody must have seen the fear in Tyler's eyes because he kept his attention trained on him even as he held up a hand to the young auror.

"Where is he?"

"I dunno" Tyler choked.

To the auror Moody directed, "Get Sheffield up here, we're gonna have to take Tyler in." Tyler could hear the threat, but he couldn't break. He had nothing to give them. "Are you going to tell me where Lupin is?" Moody asked once more.

"I don't know."

"You don't know if you'll tell me, or you don't know where Lupin is?"

Tyler's brain had turned to a liquid state of pure fear. "Yes?" He tried, without working out what Moody wanted to know.

It didn't matter the auror pulled his wand out of his pocket and Tyler knew it was a lost cause. He backed up into the room as far as he could, stumbled over a pile of blocks into the railing of Harry's bed. He held tighter to Harry than he had since the night Lily had died, knowing he couldn't let the boy go.

"Where are you taking me?" He demanded.

"Ministry." Moody responded.

"With Harry?"

"No. But we'll keep him safe." Moody seemed disinterest in Harry's fate, disinterested in anything but Remus's whereabouts.

Tyler's vision swam as he searched desperately for a way out. The window was still there, but now Moody's wand was trained on him. Wizard versus muggle. It was a lost cause, "You can't take him from me." Tyler insisted, though it sounded more like a plea.

"Not permanently, just until you tell us where Lupin is."

"I don't know-"

Sheffield arrived at Tyler's panicked words. He was tall and imposing in the cramped room. Without a word passing between the auror pair, they descended. Tyler spun to crouch his body around Harry but strong arms reached out and gripped his shoulders. He fought them off and curled in on himself. He would have pressed himself into stone until his arms were immobile rock around his nephew, but no muggle had ever successfully turned to stone on command. Instead a thick scarred hand reached around Tyler and under Harry's arm to pry him free. That finally woke Harry and brought on a fussing rage for being disturbed by someone besides his uncle.

"Don't touch him." Tyler yelled on impulse, redoubling his effort to hold Harry. He dropped to his knees, trying to escape the pressing arms. "Don't touch him, don't fucking touch him." Tyler felt the arms move from Harry, grip his own shoulder and lift him from the ground. He let his weight fight it, but it was no use. The man was strong enough to pick him up and spin him around. As soon as he was facing the door once more sparks flew and a streak of blue hit him in the arm. At first it seemed that nothing had happened, but without warning his arms became heavy and limp. With effort he held on to Harry, held on as tightly as he could, but the boy was weighing more and more by the second. A weight that felt like nothing in his arms moments before was suddenly like holding a boulder, then a car. Tyler reminded himself that it was only a spell, only a spell and if mothers could lift cars off their children surely he could hold onto Harry. Soon his legs were like lead weights and he dropped to a knee. He felt himself screaming to hold on, fighting, but when Moody stepped across the room and reached out to pluck the crying boy from his arms there was nothing Tyler could do to stop him. Even when he went to lunge after the old wizard his legs were useless beneath him and Sheffield brushed him back like a feather. Moody held Harry away with a weary frown, and Harry's screams began in earnest. His small arms reached out for his uncle.

"Daddddyyy!"

Tyler's eyes welled with angry tears, "What are you going to do with him?!" Tyler demanded. "Don't take him" He begged, but he knew what he had to do, "I saw Lupin- he was here, but I don't know where he is now. Please don't take Harry! You can't take him from me, Please! Mad-Eye!" Moody turned to walk out of the room, Harry tried to scramble over his shoulder, "Where is he going?" Tyler turned to Sheffield for answers. "Where are they going?"

Sheffield clearly had no intention of answering. With a flick of his wand thick ropes tied themselves around Tyler's wrists, "I'd be more worried about where you are going." He rumbled in response.

Sheffield dragged Tyler to his feet, and Tyler did his best to stay upright and follow the sounds of Harry's scrying out onto the landing and down the stairwell. His legs felt both numb and heavy. Harry was still crying from the floor below, and Tyler wanted to join him but reality set in. He needed to suck in his own fear. He needed to show Harry nothing was wrong, that he would be safe, so Tyler swallowed, took a breath and when Harry came into view once more he said calmly, "Harry it's okay. It's okay. It's going to be okay. Stay with Moody okay. Stay with him." Tyler didn't want to lose Harry, could't bare the thought, but if he did he wanted Harry in the arms of someone Lily and James trusted, and they had trusted Moody. It was obvious his act wasn't fooling the two year old, and when the boy found Tyler over Moody's shoulder his face scrunched up before he let out an earth-shattering wail.

Tyler felt his legs completely fall out from beneath him, "Moody, PLEASE!" He looked to the scarred auror, but Moody ignored him and carried the boy into the next room. So Tyler fought. He did everything short of ripping his hands away from his wrists to escape his restraints, but Sheffield was twice his size, magical, and Tyler was growing heavier from Moody's spell with every strain of his muscle. Tyler was being pulled away from the sound of Harry's screams, toward the floo with Sheffield. "Moody. MOODY! No, no. Fuck! You can't take him! MOODY" but before he knew it he was jerked up, around and into a blazing green light. A second later he could no longer hear Harry, just the roar of a fire and then the shuffling of feet on marble floors.

Tyler's chants of "no, nononono." Continued through the long, dimly lit hallways of the ministry, up a noisy elevator shaft and into the catacombs of the auror offices. He was too heavy and afraid to stand on his own by they time he was placed on a dirty wooden chair in a small containment room. Without the fight, Moody's spell was creeping up on him. "Where's Harry?" He managed to slur at Sheffield before the weight of the spell reached his lips.

Sheffield smirked, but didn't answer. He shut and locked the door as Moody's spell reached Tyler's eyelids and they dropped shut, leaving him to hang heavy and limp in his chair screaming on the inside and unable to move.


	11. Chapter 10: Rescue Plans

Tyler's home had been invaded. Severus woke with a screaming fear, his wand sparking and whistling in a high pitched way that could only mean someone had tripped the security at the old house. He barely stumbled into a pair of shoes before flying toward the floo in bleary rush.

He was standing with a handful of floo powder, his hand hovering over the flames before his brain caught up with him. He couldn't storm into Tyler's house. He had to protect them, sure, but he also had to be smart. Reason dictated that he couldn't sacrifice his own position for them yet. He needed to think about what would he find there. The ministry, Death Eaters, Muggle kids holding rolls of toilet paper? What would he say to any of these groups to explain his sudden presence? What was his position, what would be his alibi for knowing so quickly that something had happened? His heart was fighting his brain in a death match. Harry … and to a lesser extent (he tried to convince himself) Tyler were in trouble but he had to save face, play the game correctly. He took a steadying breath and considered his options. It took ten seconds but he made a decision. He placed a silencing charm on his shoes and chucked the handful of floo.

He spun back into his own living room seconds later.

"Oh very nice, Moody." Severus spat landing heavily after being, in no uncertain terms, kicked back from Tyler's Floo. "Clearly an auror trick, an auror trick that screams Mad-Eye Moody", Severus continued to fume.

Though it wasn't comforting to know that dark wizard catchers were at Tyler's house, Severus consoled himself that if the house were attacked at least one of Dumbledore's top men were on the case. He couldn't let it go though. He needed to see the house himself, know that it wasn't in ruins, that it wasn't god forbid burning to the ground with a certain symbol hanging in the sky.

His breath caught in his throat at the mere thought that Tyler and Harry had been attacked, but he couldn't let himself think that way, not yet. He marched to his bookcase, scanned every row until he found what he was looking for and threw open the book to the section on anti-blocking spells. He glared over his shoulder at the floo, would he be able to break through Moody's wards while in transit? It didn't matter, he had to try.

It took a half hour and several attempts before he could break through every spell Moody had cast, and after being spat out of the floo three more times he was able to slip through the whirlwind of flames into Tyler's home.

True to the silencing charm he landed on cushioned feet. It didn't take long for Severus to realize that the disaray in the house was more than just Tyler's usual messy lifestyle. There had been a search, and possibly a struggle. Severus reached out and touched an overturned lamp. It was Tyler's favorite. Severus groaned that he knew that bit of information about the boy, but before he left the room to continue his search he repaired it with a flick of his wand and replaced it on the side table.

The house was silent. He prepared to see bodies around every corner as he search the kitchen, then the bathroom. He tiptoed upstairs wand at the ready. Every room was a mess, but devoid of human life.

Severus couldn't think of anywhere else to look, unless… Severus turned toward the locked basement. Of course. If Tyler were hiding safely it would be in the one magically secure place in the building. Even if he hated the place. Severus went to the wall where the door was hiding and stopped. The magical seal that usually kept it hidden had been broken. In fact there was a small glimmer of light peaking around the edges. Someone was down there. Severus couldn't let himself hope that it was Tyler and Harry. To much had already gone wrong that night for it to be this easy.

He reached out and opened the door. It couldn't be Tyler, he reminded himself, to keep his hopes in check. Magical bobbles of light bounced along the ceiling, and his heart sank. It was definitely not Tyler. Severus could see the hem of wizard robes swishing below. Severus stealed himself for whoever might be in the basement and stepped onto the creaky top stair. The man at the bottom of the stairs turned, stepped over and peered up at him.

"Severus." A dangerously cruel face smirked back.

"Carrow?" A thousand terrifying thoughts screamed through Severus's head. His worst nightmare, a Death Eater standing in Tyler's home, had just come to life.

"On the trail of Lupin." Carrow hissed in delight. Hunters eyes flashed at Severus and his stomach twisted.

"and have you found him?"

"Noooo" Carrow exhaled. He almost sounded contemplative, though Severus wasn't sure it was in the man's power to use his brain. He took another step down and followed Carrow's eyeline. He was admiring the bloody spatter-paint of the basement walls. Severus had never seen the place in such good lighting. He usually lit one lamp and dragged the limp body of Tyler out of the chilly space as quickly as possible. Under the bobbing lights of Carrow's several flames the place was horrific. Blood and claw scratches marred every surface. There were stains in colors Severus didn't want to think about and rust had begun to build up from the years of spilt blood. He looked over to Carrow and was disgusted to see the gleeful intrigue in the man's face.

Carrow must have noticed, "Remarkable what those things do to themselves during a full moon. Especially locked in a closet."

"Remarkable indeed, but does it answer any questions?" Severus asked, trying to keep bile from sneaking up his throat.

"Hm?" Carrow looked up at him, as if surprised that he didn't have anything gory to say about their surroundings. As if to punish Severus's lack of interest he asked snidely, "What are you doing here? Dumbledore sent you to check up on our search for Lupin?"

"Of course it was Dumbledore." Severus replied cooly. Carrow was making it too easy for him to cover up his reason for being there.

Carrow looked skeptical about Snape's life choices, "Yeah, well this is a dead end. Lupin might have been here last month, but he init here now."

Severus raised an eyebrow, "How do you know he was here. This could be anyone's blood." Severus needed to know if Carrow had any suspicions about Tyler. It was bad enough he had found the cellar, he didn't want to give away its main occupant.

"Nah, this place is a classic werewolf… Blood, scratches and all that. Anyway, it would got to be his seeing as this place belongs to some muggle and his kid. Couldn't be him turnin' into a wolf every month." Carrow laughed, as if a muggle werewolf was the craziest thing he had ever heard but Severus let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Carrow didn't know Tyler's identity, he didn't even know he was in the home of the Harry Potter, "Ah well. I should head out. Nothin' to see here." He paused at the door and grinned wildly at Severus, "but if the ministry gets anything out of the muggle, I may just get to catch myself a rabid dog tomorrow."

Severus waited as Carrow's feet creaked up the steps and then across the first floor to the Floo.

Severus felt cold shivers pass down his arms. Tyler must be at the ministry. They had him because they believed, as Severus did, that Tyler knew Lupin's whereabouts.

Severus didn't need to look at the dirty walls of the basement any longer, he snuffed out the lights with his wand and turned to hurry up the stairs. He needed to speak with Dumbledore.

He paused at floo once more. He needed a pretense for having the knowledge that he did. Perhaps he could simply tell Dumbledore Carrow had gotten in touch with him… at midnight, in order to get helping finding Lupin. The lie fell flat, he suspected Dumbledore would be able to see right through him. His powder-full hand faltered over the floo, then with a heap of determination he chucked the powder in to the fire and stepped into the green flames.

"Headmaster's office, Hogwarts." He demanded, and without another second to look at the disheveled state of Tyler's home he was dropping away.

* * *

"I don't KNOW where Lupin is." Tyler screamed again. "Where is Harry!" He added. He heard his voice crack. It was breaking from the screams from earlier that night and the subsequent talking, because he had been talking nonstop for an hour. Severus would have sneered and told him to shut his worried mouth. He knew he talked when he was nervous, or tired, or surprised, but now he was shaking with fear and words beyond his control were spilling out of his mouth. He had already told the men and women in maroon robes everything he knew about Lupin. He told them that the wizard had looked shabby when he had stopped by the house, that he had only been there to apologize for not being around more, and that he was fine, really, and he didn't need a place to stay. Tyler even told them he had offered him Lily and James's old room.

Tyler continued babbling. He told the witches and wizards that he was suspicious of Remus's claims that he was "fine" but he was used to Remus's nonchalant shrugs when it came to his health and his home. He didn't know how many times Remus had said the same things to James and Sirius over the years. Tyler said he had to trust he knew what he was doing. He explained that in the end he had sent the man off with a sandwich and a wave. That he didn't believe Remus was capable of what he was accused of. That he was always nice to him, and that Sirius was a brat who didn't deserve Remus's friendship.

The wizards demanded more than mere stories though. With each question Tyler feared more and more for his and Harry's lives.

"Why were there fresh anti-werewolf charms on your basement then?"

"I don't know! I want to see my nephew!"

"Are you hiding a werewolf in your basement?"

"Dude, I'm a muggle. I have no clue what you're talking about…" Tyler fumbled. He was thankful Moody had already left the room. Moody probably could have sensed his lies.

"There was blood."

"I don't know!" Tyler's heart was doing flips. If they found out about him he would lose Harry, and he would do anything to keep Harry, anything.

Forty-five minutes later and he was starting to wear them down with his useless information.

"Look I'm a muggle." He insisted to the few remaining wizards, "I study science and cook food on a stove and make a lot of toast with an electric toaster, and I like to use lightbulbs and I only know silly magic tricks, really. Hold on, I've got one I can do, even in my pajamas, with my hands tied behind my back." Tyler scrunched up his face. "Pick a number between 1 and 10."

An auror left the room in frustration. There were eye rolls from the two remaining people in the room, one old witch who looked bored with the interrogations and a young wizard doing his best to look intimidating by the door. They didn't take the bait, so Tyler asked again,

"1 and 10 it's easy."

"Shut up."

Tyler ignored them, "Where's Harry? Can I see him yet?"

"Maybe if you tell us something useful." The younger man snapped.

"No." The witch intoned over top of the younger man. Her word was stretched out and languid. Tyler blinked slow, tired blinks, he didn't know what other angle he could try to work the aurors at. They had Harry, he knew it. Wouldn't they have told him if they had handed Harry over to Petunia or some other wizard family? He needed to know his nephew was safe. He needed to know. It was the only thing on his mind, sparking and too bright, he couldn't look away from the question.

An hour later he became belligerent. "I need to know he's safe _at least_." Tyler croaked. His voice was getting worse as the night wore one. It must have been near three am though he couldn't tell in the small enclosed room. The wizard sniffed, crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. They were just sitting with him now. Not talking, not asking questions, just sitting.

"Is there something I could do to speed this process up? Seriously." Tyler almost cried.

"Unfortunately there isn't."

"Why? I'll do anything. I need to see Harry."

"You are the sole witness to a man who has dissapered and may be attached to Sirius Black's activities on Halloween night."

Tyler's stomach flipped violently, and not for the first time that evening. Every time Halloween was mentioned his stomach flipped and his body ached with grief. His heart temporarily stopped beating. He had spent so long trying to quiet the storm in his mind from that night that the constant reminder from strangers was nearly killing him.

"Please stop saying that." He managed. "Lupin wasn't involved. If he was and I knew where he was I would be more than happy to to turn him over, but I don't know where he is. I just want to see my nephew and go home."

"We're working on it."

"What do you mean you're working on it?"

"You're being obstinate, so Moody's getting the paperwork signed to use veritaserum on you."

* * *

It was a quick floo jump into the headmasters office, but the room was dark when he arrived. Dumbledore either wasn't awake or had already left to sort out whatever mistake had taken place. Severus raced to Dumbledore's desk for any hint that Dumbledore was aware of the events of the night. There was nothing written, no notes from the auror, magical law enforcement or even the werewolf capture unit. Severus was just about to head toward Dumbledore's sleeping chambers when the floo once against burst to life. Out stepped the headmaster in brilliant green robes with small stars dancing on the shimmering material. It was those stars that seemed to have Harry's full attention for the boy was staring at one on Dumbledore's shoulder and poking the shimming gold color. Of course he would like gold, Severus felt a piece of his brain grumble, before reality set in. Dumbledore was holding Harry. Harry was okay! Severus inwardly melted with relief.

"Dumbledore." He greeted.

Harry turned at the sound of his voice. Severus felt cold filter from his shoulders down to his fingertips. The boy was looking right at him. He was pointing and grinning with familiarity. Severus knew he was in trouble. The boy was old enough to recognize him, but too young to understand that he shouldn't point to him in public.

"Severus." Dumbledore didn't seem the least bit surprised by the boys actions. In fact he simply smiled, placed the boy on the ground and watched as Harry stumbled across the stone floor and into the safe folds of Severus's robes.

"Headmaster?"

"I cannot blame either you or Tyler for reuniting. I do not need to know the circumstances either." Dumbledore gave Severus a pointed look. He knew, it was clear he knew, but without speaking Dumbledore was giving Tyler lenience. Severus tried not to breathe out relief too obviously. As the headmaster swooped around his desk and into his high-backed chair Severus leaned down and plucked Harry from the floor. There were still tear stains on his cheeks and he seemed tired and frustrated, but as soon as he was up in Severus's arms he leaned his head into his shoulder and sighed with comfort. Severus hesitated but then reached up and wiped the tears from Harry's eyes with the sleeve of his robe. Harry leaned in closer and shut his eyes, breathing in his musty black robes as if everything in the world were once again in order.

It took Severus a few moments to compose himself before he could turn back to the headmaster and ask, "Why did they release him to you? Where is Tyler exactly?"

"Tyler is with the Auror department. They seem to think he knows where Lupin is… He doesn't does he?" Dumbledore shot Severus with a piercing look.

"He knew, but I don't believe he knows anymore."

"They sent someone from the Werewolf Capture Unit to Tyler's home. He returned to the ministry just as I was leaving. I took it upon myself to wipe a few things from his memory and reapply a few safety spells to Tyler's home to keep Carrow from being able to return without my permission. I hope that's alright. I realize Carrow is an old friend of yours."

Severus grunted his approval. Having Carrow in Tyler's home was jarring. Like finding a venomous snake living in your bed. "…and Harry?" Severus had to ask the question again, nodding to the boy on his shoulder.

"They couldn't just hand The-Boy-Who-Lived off to anyone could they?" Dumbledore answered off-handedly.

"Of course not." Severus realized Dumbledore was the only solution short of handing Harry over to Petunia, and he was certain neither she nor her neckless husband would be happy about that particular call at one in the morning. Dumbledore didn't seem to have any similar worry.

"I plan to drop him off at his aunt's as soon as possible."

"Petunia?" Severus perked up with shock and worry.

Dumbledore looked up at him and with complete seriousness and replied, "It's likely they won't let Tyler keep him after tonight."

Worry pierced Severus's heart.

"We need to find him."

"Find who?" Dumbledore asked.

"Lupin. We need to find him. He's the key. If we turn him in they'll have to let Tyler go. They'll see that Tyler had nothing to do with his hiding out!"

Dumbledore pondered his logic for several moments. Peered at him with his almost glowing blue eyes, then said simply, "I do not believe Lupin to be guilty."

Severus wanted to scream that he didn't care what Dumbledore believed, that he only cared that Tyler would get to keep Harry, that Harry's happiness mattered, that the child of Lily Evens should be with Tyler and not their anti-magic older sister. Instead he countered, "I do believe he's guilty" without worry that the headmaster might chastise him about childhood feuds. On his arm Harry could feel Severus tense. They boy rose up and tried to pat Severus's face, just as Tyler would pat his when he cried. "Harry I'm fine. Go back to sleep." He pressed the boy's head back onto his shoulder with his free hand and Harry reluctantly returned to his lounge.

"So you would turn Lupin in to get Tyler out? It's unnecessary. They cannot hold Tyler for more than 24 hours and there is a chance that they won't discover his secret and everything will return to normal."

"But if I get Lupin to them before they discover his secret then I save Tyler and turn over a Death Eater." Severus almost hissed.

"I can't stop you. But whatever happens to Lupin will be on your shoulders, and he is a good man. He is an Order member, part of the team…"

Severus heard the threat in the headmaster's voice. Severus didn't need any more guilt on his shoulders, but he couldn't let Tyler go down- he couldn't lose Harry- not without fighting with everything he had. "I think I'll live." He bit.

Severus turned to head back toward the floo, to begin his search for the wayfaring werewolf, but Dumbledore piped up one last time, "You can leave Harry with me. I promise that he will be safe."

Severus spun and looked at the Headmaster, then down at Harry lazily playing with a loose thread on his robes. Maybe he trusted Dumbledore, but not tonight. Dumbledore would leave Harry in the arms of almost unknown relatives, who didn't want him. Severus couldn't allow that, not on a night when he had been ripped away from the only father figure he knew.

"I'll keep an eye on him." He told the old man and without waiting for a response, he turned and disappeared through the floo.


	12. Chapter 11: The Search

Okay all my lovelies. Truth time- I am flipping miserable. I imagine some of you are too, so I'm posting this in hopes that it gives you momentary distraction. Harry Potter has gotten me through many a things, let this be one more.

Having said that I need to let you know that this is going out slightly more raw than I would like. I'm doing National Novel Writing Month challenge thing (NaNoWriMo) and have been neglecting , but on a day like this I wanted to give you all _something_. So please excuse the raging typos and grammar errors. My spell check also likes to change some magical words and names to ridiculous english equivalents, so apparate, floo and other might be a weird word. Again I haven't edited this. I plan to do a better edit once I have more time and have stopped sobbing.

Thank you all I hope you're safe, well, and taking care of yourself and your loved ones.

* * *

"Come on Harry. We're going to find Lupin ourselves and then we're going to turn him in and get your stupid git of a guardian back where he belongs." And where he belongs, Severus snapped inwardly, is here. He knew that as soon as he stepped out of the floo and onto the soft carpet of Tyler's living room. It still smelled like Tyler, it felt like him.

Severus wasn't often at the house, but it was full of if not good, at least tolerable memories. Not the memories of Tyler being sick and ill, those were awful, but the memories of holding Harry and he supposed playing long games of chess with Tyler.

Severus realized that it hurt to imagine Tyler left there alone, in an empty house without his nephew. Tyler had survived a lot in life, Severus wasn't sure he could survive losing Harry.

Severus wasn't sure he could survive it.

He shook the dust off himself and Harry, then scanned the room out of habit. Nothing was more out of place then it had been last time so he made a bee-line for the stairs. He took them up two at ta time until the was on the blue carpeted landing. Severus knew where Tyler slept only because he had found him dead asleep there after the few full moons when he had had enough energy to make it up the stairs. He had still been a sore bloody mess, but at least Severus hadn't needed to enter the basement.

The room Tyler shared with Harry was the smaller of two and crowded now with everything Harry needed to survive. There was a crib squeezed against the far wall, a second dresser full of the boy's clothes, toys and a bookshelf along with Tyler's dresser and closet that seemed to expel clothing across the limited floor space.

Severus didn't ask why the second room was never opened up, he had an aching feeling it was still packed with Lily's things. Neither of them wanted to deal with that.

Severus slipped up the stairs and opened the door to the room, hopeful he would find a pair of pants and a shirt that would fit him. He set Harry down amidst the disarray and picked his way over to the dresser. He managed to find a pair of dark jeans and one button up shirt. Tyler however was at least a size smaller than him and thin framed, much more like Petunia than Lily. He had one foot in the pair of pants before he knew they wouldn't fit. He groaned. He had thrown all of his own muggle clothes out years ago, and he wasn't about to wander around London in search of Lupin in black robes.

From amidst a pile of toys and pants Harry stared at him, a hand in his mouth. "No good" He mumbled at the toddler. He looked around the floor and knew there would be nothing that would fit him here except the odd pair of sweatpants. Perhaps he could buy something? Besides being the middle of the night he wasn't sure any muggle shop would sell to a man who appeared to be wearing a dress. He growled to himself at a loss for options until he remembered the closed off room on the other side of the landing.

Lily's things, but a piece of him wondered… Sirius and James were much closer to his size…

Severus walked across the room and scooped Harry back up into his arms. The tired child would go along with anything at this point. Severus crept across the second floor landing and hesitated at the door to the second bedroom. It took him several seconds to gather the nerve to turn the handle. He was glad no one was around to witness the momentary hesitation. He could barely admit it to himself that he was afraid to himself. Instead he readjusted Harry, pretending that was the cause of his momentary pause and reached out to open the door.

The door squeaked as if it were crying out for him not to enter. Severus braced himself and Harry straightened out in his arms, perhaps sensing his unease. "'S okay." He told the child under his breath. "'S okay" he repeated in an attempt to convince himself. "Lumos" He commanded and a small beam of light shot out from his wand. With another flick of his wrist a small orb of light floated up from his wand to bobble along the ceiling much like Carrow's had earlier that day.

He gingerly set Harry on his feet and looked around the room. Somehow it was worse than he had imagined, because five minutes ago he had had trouble imagining the room would be full of stacks of Lily's old clothes and boxes of shoes scattered across the floor. He should have known. These were the few possession she had carried out of their burnt house when their mother died. These were the last relics of her childhood. Things she hadn't carried on to her married life. Open cardboard boxes held patterned dresses and drawings that had once hung on her mother's refrigerator. Severus couldn't breath. The room smelled of childhood dinners as the Potters and of nights spent staring up at stars and chasing fireflies. Crunching leaves and crayons. Severus backed out of the room. He wasn't ready for that.

The light in the hall was dim, but he could still see Harry's dark head standing amidst the pieces of his mother's youth. The boy toddled in a circle looking for the adult in charge of him with wide curious eyes. Curious green eyes. He met Severus's and pointed up with a drawn frown, "Sad?" He asked, point at Severus's face. Severus was startled at the accusation. Sad? He reached a hand up to his face and realized with horror that involuntary tears were welling up in his eyes. He wasn't crying, of course he wasn't crying, he was merely taken a back by the unexpected. Harry made a "pick me up motion." With a whine, but made no move to come into the hall. He wanted picked up from where he stood inside the room. Severus faltered, waited to see if Harry would come to him. Instead the child's pleas became more frantic. He swayed back and forth, his frown deepening and his whine growing louder. Severus looked behind him to the safety of Tyler's room. Then back to Harry and with a jolt he was reminded of the mission at hand. He needed pants, and then he needed to find Lupin. In one swift movement he stepped back into the room, picked Harry up and turned toward the closet where he suspected any leftover adult clothing would be left. He steadied himself, after all he had a task that needed completed, he couldn't be bogged down by feeling or memories. He pushed open the closet door and was glad to see a few stacks of old clothes. They were expensive, or would have been when James first bought them. He pulled out the first pair of pants he could find and checked their sized against himself. It would do.

Severus wasn't interested in wearing an old concert t-shirt though and grudgingly changed into James's button down. He stuffed the tail of his shirt into the pants and turned to face Harry.

"How does that look?" He asked the boy.

Harry blinked back at him, his green eyes, dark hair and tell-tale scar shining back. Severus supposed he looked fine, but the real problem he knew was Harry. The kid was famous. If they ran into another wizard Severus suspected they would be shocked, perhaps they would even draw a horrible kidnapping conclusion. Harry in the arms of suspected Death Eater, that would be the headline of the week. Severus grinned a wry grin, but decided he needed to do something to disguise Harry. Severus crawled back over the room's mess to the toddler. "Come here." He grumbled s he set the boy atop the mess that was atop a dresser. "This won't hurt a bit." With a quick wave of his wand and a tap on the boy's temple his eyes watered a bit them turned to a dusty grey. "At least it won't hurt you." He frowned realizing the grey made the boy look much more like his father than Severus had intended. "Let's try again." Severus tapped Harry's forehead again and this time his eyes watered then shifted to a caramel brown. The change was more difficult as Brown and green were a stretch transfiguration-wise, but at least the boy looked less like a spitting image of James potter.

"That damn scar" Severus muttered. Severus realized that even if he could do something about harry's hair there was nothing he could do about the scar emblazoned on his forehead so instead of trying anything he dug through the a few drawers until he discovered a cloth hat. He pulled it over Harry's head and shrugged with satisfaction. It was better than nothing and both hair and scar were now covered. "Time to go find your Father's pet werewolf." Severus grumbled swinging the boy off the dresser.

The problem with looking for Lupin was that no matter what he would recognize Harry, and worse he would recognize Severus. On the other hand it could work to his advantage. Lupin would be less likely to attack Severus if he saw Harry was with him or he would further incriminate himself by attacking Severus and land himself a one way ticket to Azkaban. Meanwhile Severus could easily say Dumbledore had asked him to watch the child for the day as his guardian was otherwise indisposed. All of these logistics swam through Severus's head, but he didn't dare return Harry to Dumbledore. Instead he carried down the stairs and into the living room. "Where to first you suppose." He asked Harry. The boy didn't respond, "Very well, perhaps we will start by checking out the homeless shelters?"

They left the house through the back door and into the garden. Severus had decided to apparatus into the city and begin his search at some of the homeless shelters. Any shelter he could find. He knew the magical department of law enforcement scarcely wandered into the magical world to check muggle facilities, perhaps he would get lucky. He held Harry tight against him and left for the city.

They checked at four shelters before he had any type of lead. A grubby man with a greasy black beard said he had seen someone with Lupin's description the day before. "He ate and moved on", the man shrugged. It was still very early in the morning Severus was shocked they had found anyone to talk to them, let alone someone who had recognized Lupin. "He was young, probably staying with the kids near the Kingston Bridge."

Severus thanked the man, and would have given him money if he had anything but a few knuts in his pockets and left.

Time was running short. Severus feared for what was going on with Tyler back at the ministry, but he had no time to find out, he needed to get to lupin.

Harry too was getting restless. He was squirming and getting himself into trouble (typical of a potter Severus grumbled to himself as he pulled harry out of patch of brambles) but seemed to be delighted by all the sights and sounds of the city. Light was creeping over the top of a building by the time they reached the river. It was a thirty minute walk from the spot where they had met the man with the tip.

There was no one by Lupin's description anywhere among the dirty and angry looking teenagers. By the time they had searched the entire place Harry was falling asleep in his arms and the sun was beginning to glint off the pavement. Horror was bubbling in Severus's stomach. What if he didn't find Lupin in time? What if something did happen to Tyler? What if he was indicted for consorting with a criminal and then locked away? Who would take care of Harry then? Severus looked down at Harry's hat-covered head. A picture of Petunia glaring at him and Lily passed his mind. He couldn't let that happen. Severus groaned up at the sky, somewhere in the distance a train whistled and chugged by.

 _Platform 9 3/4 was still packed with people. People bustle and stumbled into one another. Everyone was too busy saying their goodbyes to friends and hellos to parents to care about the person next to them. Carts bounced into trunks, owls squaked, and a few unfortunate students chased cats and frogs down the long stretch of pavement._

 _Severus had no such troubles. His one small trunk, packed to the hilt mostly with books and schoolwork was easy to maneuver and he had no wild-pet to keep an eye on. He also had the time to look around himself. He had no one to say goodbye to, not since his and Lily's parting of ways a year ago, and no one to say hello to. The rest of the day would be a series of buses and long walks until he was once again at the dirty front stoop of his new apartment. Seventeen in a few months and then he could just apparate back in the fall, but until then it was walking. After third year he had gotten lucky and was able to take the trip home with Lily in the back of her mother's car, but now he had no such companionship. Not even the other Slytherins seemed interested in wishing him a good holiday or offering him a ride home. Just as well. He didn't have much in common with most of them and had less to say to them._

 _Severus was just about to heave his trunk onto his shoulder and start his journey when a body barreled into him. He cursed at the impact, suspecting an impatient and reckless first year, but before he could whip out his wand to actually hex the being he realized whoever it was, was holding on to him. Severus looked down and saw a mop of black hair before Tyler popped his head up and smiled._

 _"_ _Was up Sev!"_

 _"_ _Get off."_

 _"_ _What am I getting muggle germs on you?"_

 _"_ _No, What? Just let go." Severus pried Tyler's arms off him and and held him back, "Muggle what?" He repeated._

 _"_ _Muggle germs" Tyler explained, "It's what Sirius says when I stand too close to him."_

 _Severus dropped Tyler's arms as a bitter anger well up in him,"Sirius says you have muggle germs?" He demanded as he looked the fourteen-year-old up and down. He had grown… he had groan a lot in the past year, and not only his hair that he obviously had forgotten to cut. His childhood chubbiness had worn off into gangly length and his oversized feet finally seemed to fit his body. Acne spots had popped up on his white face, but his smile remained as juvenile as ever._

 _"_ _It's just a joke" Tyler waved off, "I think, he thinks the word 'germ' is funny." Tyler smirked at the word himself. Severus knew what it meant, but he could see why Sirius would find the muggle science word silly._

 _Severus tried to wrap his head around his own venomous reaction as he tried to explain to the boy,"Tyler it's not- he can't say that to you." Tyler frowned and Severus hated himself for having to explain, "Muggles don't have any special germs. You're just as good as any of them." He pointed down the platform to where a break in the crowed had finally shown the marauders, Lily and a few Gryffindor girls standing in a circle enjoying themselves."What are you doing down here anyway, aren't you here to pick up Lily?"_

 _"_ _Wha? Yah…Nah. She's not coming home tonight, she's going out with them. They're talking about where to get celebratory drinks tonight. I'm obviously not going to be allowed to join them, so I thought I would come say 'hi' why they argued." Tyler looked almost sad, but then perked up with a new thought. "Hey could I hang out with you?!"_

 _Severus restrained himself from rolling his eyes. "No."_

 _"_ _Please, I'll behave. I just want to show you this new trick I learned-" Tyler fumbled in the pocket of his jeans on the search for something Severus couldn't being to fathom. After a thorough search and the extraction of a deck of cards, a sock puppet and the worlds longest series of multi-colored scarfs from his back pocket Tyler finally found the handful of coins he was looking for._

 _He barely had a chance to hold up a coin to begin his demonstration when he was cut off by a voice calling,"Hey Tyler!" Both Tyler and Severus looked up from the boy's coin and down the platform to where the call had come from. To neither of their surprises Remus Lupin was moving slowly toward them. "You coming, we need to leave soon." The dusty-haired boy continued._

 _Severus tried to hide a sneer, and pushed a desire to step protectively between Tyler and Lupin to the back of his head._

 _Tyler called out, "Just a second, I wanna show-"_

 _"_ _No. No time, we need to leave, come on." There was no doubt the pitch to Lupin's voice meant he felt uncomfortable with Lily's precious brother being so close to a Slytherin. Tyler wouldn't have detected it with a flashing neon sign as explanation but Severus knew it was there._

 _Because of that Tyler ignored Lupin and held up a coin into Severus's line of sight, "Regular coin right?" He asked with a wide smile._

 _"_ _Moss!" The hackles rose on Severus neck. Who was Lupin to use that name?_

 _"_ _Moss, you should go." Severus agreed quietly. He jerked his head toward Lupin in emphasis but Tyler only frowned at him. Severus couldn't admit, even deep down that he kind of wanted to invite the boy with him on his journey home. Well, he didn't want to invite him, he just didn't want Tyler to have to leave with James and his cronies. He knew he couldn't invite him through. There was too much to explain, too many long hurt feelings. Instead he wracked his brain for the easiest way to get rid of Tyler. Severus reached into a pocket of his robes and pulled out a full box of Bertie Botts beans. "Here. I got these for you. Enjoy, and go." He had meant to snack on them on the walk home, had spent the last of his pocket change on a box from the trolly lady, but the kid clearly needed encouragement to leave. Once again Severus nodded toward Lupin, but it was not necessary, Lupin had crossed the space in a few strides and plucked the small container from Tyler's grasp._

 _"_ _It's fine, you can keep them." Lupin told Severus, trusting the box back into his hands and grabbing Tyler's arm, prepared to pull him away._

 _"_ _Nah it's cool Remus. I love Bertie Botts! I know they have terrifying wizard flavors. I'm not scared" Severus and Lupin's eyes met, both knowing that Lupin's fear had nothing to do with the beans' odd flavors, but rather what Severus might have put in them to poison him. To prove himself though Tyler plucked the container back from Severus, opened it and popped a handful into his mouth. Lupin and Severus both turned their attention to him, waiting for anything out of the ordinary to happen._

 _"_ _Oh god!" Tyler swore. Lupin jerked in fear, shot Severus a dirty look, but Tyler continued, "You. Should. Not eat. All of these at once." He said through a sticky mouthful of candy. "They all got funny flavors… AUGH…Mud… and I mixed them all… Blech. Dish soap? Oh lord, bad plan." He shook his head violently._

 _Severus turned to Lupin who looked almost disappointed not to have proven Severus a murderer._

 _"_ _We'll remember that for next time." Lupin mumbled, "Now, Let's go." He reached out his hand again to pull tyler away but Tyler stopped him with a question._

 _"_ _Remus, can I got over to Severus's…?"_

 _"_ _What?"_

 _"_ _Severus'll say 'no' but I know you're all going out drinking. He'll babysit." Tyler volunteered Severus with a wave of his hand._

 _"_ _Mary said she would hang out with you." Lupin explained flatly._

 _"_ _Ugh. Mary's a girl. Listen if you need me or anything happens, just come over to Severus's new place he lives in an apartment in London. It's easy to find- 336 Park wa-" Severus shot forward and covered Tyler's mouth with his rough hand before the boy could give away the rest of the address. Lupin's eyebrows scrunched together with a mix of confusion and frustration._

 _"_ _Tyler we need to go." He repeated trying to tug Tyler out of Severus's grasp._

 _Severus felt successful in shutting the boy up until a slimy sticky feeling started oozing around his fingers."Gahhh! Gross, Moss!" Severus jerked away from the boy rubbing his sodden hand on his robe. "Did you just lick me!?"_

 _"_ _Park way, London" Tyler finished, popping a bean into his mouth. "You can find me there if there's an emergency. It'll be our emergency spot!"_

 _"_ _Are you made of spit!" Severus continued to rub sticky slobber off his hand, "Go with Lupin!" He insisted now, a little more furiously._

 _"_ _Actually humans are 52% water.. So yes" Tyler explained._

 _"_ _GO!" Severus pointed down the platform in mild rage._

 _"_ _Moss, you're coming with us." Lupin agreed and with that he grabbed Tyler by the crook of his arm and with a long dejected look the boy was walked down the platform toward the gathered group of Gryfindoors. Severus was left to lift his trunk over his shoulder and walk into the blazing heat of the London afternoon, only a little worried about who he had left Tyler alone with._

Severus suddenly realized he knew exactly where Lupin would be.

* * *

Nervousness made Tyler's entire body shake. He had been sitting and talking for hours. Somewhere along the lines he had begun listing off everything he remembered from his A level biology course, his favorite class, but something the Aurors found less than interesting. The only thing he could say for himself at this point was that he hadn't given away any of his magician's secrets. "A magician never tells how he does his tricks", he had helpfully explain two the two aurors before jumping back to a run-through of his life, "I dropped out, you know. First year on my way to a medical degree. I was a promising student and everything, but I had to drop out to take care of Harry. He means everything to me. Is there any chance I could just see him. Like show me a picture of him with whoever he's with. Who is he with? Do you know? Petunia's my sister, she would watch him. Is it daytime yet? She would answer the door and everything if it's not the middle of the night. Number four privet drive. Lovely neighborhoo-?"

"Hush up!" The door to the small room they were holding him in slammed open. Tyler jumped at the sound then found himself looking up into the eyes of the most terrifying being he had ever seen. Gnarled hair sat atop a face with such a lecherous gleaming smile that Tyler tried to scoot back in his chair in fear. But the monster had't been the one who had spoken. When he stepped aside Moody was there, staring him down. "Tyler have you stopped talking in the last six hours." He asked.

Tyler didn't the the chance to respond, the two jurors who had spent most of the night with him both declared "no" at the same moment. Moody growled and stomped the rest of the way into the room. He slammed the door shut behind him with a flick of his wand and nodded at the monster who had taken up residence in the corner, "Mr. Evan's this is Carrow from the Werewolf capture unit." Tyler flicked his attention over to Carrow for a brief second. He didn't like what he saw or the title attached to the man. Would that be the person dragging him out of the room in a few hours to be flogged? What did wizards do to people as punishment. Sirius was in prison. Would he end up in prison with Sirius? Moody moved on, "Carrow checked your home last night and believes- as I do- that a werewolf has been staying with you, at least during full moons." Tyler's stomach bubbled with worry. He felt like he had missed the last step on a flight of stairs. Did they have him pinned down?

"We suspect that being is Remus Lupin, and with that information and the knowledge that Remus Lupin might very well have been in league with Death eaters-"

"He wasn't" Tyler insisted for the hundredth time that night

Moody ignored the interruption and continued, "-We were able to talk the magical law enforcement department to grant us permission to use veritaserum. Do you know what that is?" Moody had to ask, Tyler could tell he didn't want to bother getting into the law stuff, he just wanted to use whatever veritaserum was and get on with it.

Tyler swallowed and answered, "No."

Moody fumbled with something in one of his many cloak pockets. After a moment of searching he pulled out a small crystal bottle containing an equally clear liquid.

"Water?" Tyler asked stupidly.

"Veritaserum." The new arrival hissed from where he had taken up station in the corner. Moody flicked the old auror out of her chair with a nod of the head and took her place across from Tyler at the table.

"This, Tyler, is a truth potion."

"Veritas, meaning truth, from the latin." Tyler rattled off. Between reading his sister's spell books while growing up and taking as many science classes as he could Tyler's latin wasn't lacking.

Moody wasn't impressed however. "You drink even a few drops of this and you will be spilling out the truth to us, whether you like it or not."

For the first time Tyler was silent. He tried to look Moody in the eye, but one of them just kept moving in a distracted circle and the other was too blue. Moody was looking at him though. Sizing him up. "Still don't want to tell us the truth son?" He asked.

Tyler's mouth was dry. They wouldn't find Lupin. He had already told them everything he knew about the werewolf. What they would find was his truth. His life scarring, child endangering, truth. Tyler shook his head in lieu of speaking.

"Still won't talk." Moody sighed to the room at large. He didn't take his eyes off Tyler as he swiped the bottle from the table and handed it over his shoulder to the young man at the door. "Dekker, will you add two drops to some water? It's time to get the truth out."


	13. Chapter 12: Werewolf

A/N- The one year anniversary of this story was a few days ago. WOW! Thank you all so much for your support you make this extra fun to write. :D

* * *

Veritaserum was awful. It burned and left the room floating and sharp at the same time. Tyler felt stretched out and though his hands were steady he felt like he was shaking from head to foot. It felt early familiar to the first time he had had american espresso on a dare from Sirius Black, but only if he had done it while submerged in a deep ocean.

"Tyler." Through the thickness he looked up and saw Moody staring back at him. "What is you full name."

Without control Tyler responded, "Tyler Rodrick Evens."

"And how old are you?"

"Seven thousand four hundred fifty-nine." There was general mumbling and cursing around him. Someone sounded annoyed that he had given his age in days, and he was a bit surprised himself. It was just an old joke between Petunia and himself, counting their age in days instead of years.

"Calm down." Moody told the room, "Now Tyler, when was the last time you saw Remus Lupin?"

"July 20th."

"Of this year?"

"Yes."

"Do you know where he's been living?"

Tyler tried to think about it in his muddled state. He didn't know. Where would Remus be? It took him several moments to answer, "No." The answer was slow but true. The people surrounding him exploded in rage nonetheless, and he found himself flinching in fear. There were screams about whether veritaserum worked on muggles, and arguments about whether is was enough, but he couldn't make out any questions directed at him, no truths to tell, so Tyler remained silent.

* * *

Severus had his wand out before he turned the corner to Park Way.

There he was. Lupin. He looked thinner, and his clothes were shabbier than Severus remembered but he was sitting tall with as much pride as you would expect from a Gryffindor, even a homeless one. There was no safe place for Severus to squander Harry away, he considered leaving and returning later, but vagabonds moved and Severus worried this would be his only chance to take in Lupin before he disappeared again. Severus gingerly woke harry and set him carefully in a hidden alley. He set safety spells and left Harry in his line of sight as he stepping out into Lupin's view, "Lupin!"

The werewolf looked up and had his own wand out to defend himself before Severus could pull a spell. They eyed one another knowing that too many sparks flown, even early morning light, on a muggle street would land them both in a cell in the department of magical law enforcement.

Lupin lowered his wand and held up a placating hand. Even cheaply dressed, and weather worn the man commanded a calm attention, "Before we make a scene Severus do you think we could talk somewhere more private?" Lupin held Severus's gaze with piercing certainty. When Severus didn't respond or lower his wand Lupin continued, "Why do you think I'm here? At your old apartment building?"

"I think you're luring in an unsuspecting muggle." Severus said. He wanted to spit in rage that Lupin was simply waiting for Tyler to come to him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he feared what would have happened to Tyler had he met Lupin on this dark London street.

"No, Severus. You and Moss are the only ones who would know I am here." Lupin's hand remained up as he took a small step away from the apartment building, "Why are _you_ here?… And so early in the morning?"

Severus didn't answer, he didn't owe Lupin an explanation. The only thing stopping him from attacking, from throwing out restraints and dragging the werewolf back to the auror department was simple curiosity. He realized he wanted to know how Lupin defended himself against the constant onslaught of accusations, what words he used to justify his actions to himself and the world.

Lupin squinted through the darkness. While Severus contemplated his next moves Lupin realized, "Isn't that James's shirt?"

Severus used his years of being publicly humiliated to keep the embarrassment from showing on his face, "I have no idea what you are talking about."

"I remember it, we used to call it his in-law shirt. He only wore it when he had to meet Petunia somewhere." Lupin frowned before his eyes grew wide with alarm, "You've been to Moss's"

"Don't call him that?" Severus lashed out with a simple binding hex, but Lupin sidestepped it without so much as blinking. Severus was reminded of Lupin's dueling skill, he was quick and brutally sharp, but now he didn't even move his wand up by an inch to defend himself. Lupin kept his eyes trained on the place a few feet down and to the right from his face where the line of the spell had just traveled. He stared for just long enough to make Severus think he had accidentally been hit with a freezing hex but then pulled himself together and stated, "Dumbledore trusts you." He seemed to be realizing it for the first time. Severus felt his face twist into a sneer before he could stop it. That was the look he had to throw the Death Eaters when they mentioned Dumbledore, but Lupin loved the headmaster. He respected and trusted the old man, he wouldn't be throwing Dumbledore in his face to insult him.

"What's your point Lupin?"

"I trust you too." Lupin said clumsily. "If Dumbledore trusts you, I should trust you." Was Lupin trying to win him over? What game was he playing?

Severus held tighter to the handle of his wand and thought about a retort, but once again Lupin cut him off with more of his calm words, "I didn't help Sirius."

Severus waited. He had expected this statement. He had been waiting for it, so instead of interjecting he waited for the man to keep going, to keep fabricating the story he must have told himself every night for a year. He continued just as simply, "I didn't help him betray James and… Lily. That's a one man, job. I didn't help him. I didn't know. I didn't encourage it, and I sure as hell wasn't spying among the werewolves- bleeding and starving- to convince them to join a man who had a burning hatred for us." Remus was rattling off the list of reasons he was innocent as if this were the first time he was alowed to truly defend himself. "I didn't do it." He finalized with a sincerity Severus could almost believe.

"You practiced that whole speech for nothing." Severus told the werewolf, "You haven't been running for nothing. How about we let the Wizengamot decide?"

"Because they'll kill me." Lupin said. He looked up and met Severus's eyes with burning clarity, "I'll will die in their hands and you know it. A werewolf doesn't stand a chance in this system if I make it that far. There are Death Eaters on the werewolf capture unit now. They won't think twice before giving me a a slow painful death as I wait for trial. They know I was fighting them in the packs, and they know the ministry thinks I worked with-" Lupin fumbled over the name in the same way Tyler sometimes did, "-Sirius." Severus could tell Lupin was trying to reason with him as he said, "Killing me would make both sides happy, they'll do it without blinking an eye."

"You would rather live like this?" Severus mocked. He Looked Lupin up and down in his ratty clothes that hung on him like a pile of rags around a post. Even in the dim street light Severus could see strands of grey hair amidst the brown. They were both barely in their twenties, and he was already dying of old age.

"So you propose I eschew justice an leave you out here?"

Lupin blinked slowly at him, and answered solemnly, "I didn't come this far to die, trapped, at the hands of the ministry and their hired Death Eaters." His voice grew so quiet Severus could barely hear it, but he didn't need to. He felt Remus's next words ring true in his soul louder than they were spoken, "I'll die by my own terms if I die at all. I think you would do the same?"

Severus didn't let the thought sink in, but struck out at Lupin with as much force as he could muster.

* * *

Moody fell back in his chair, out of ideas. Tyler watched him through the fog. They had asked him a lot of questions, each one getting them no closer to what they wanted, but closer to truths Tyler didn't want to tell. He didn't know where Lupin was. He had coroberated his earlier story about seeing Lupin once, a few weeks ago, but that was it. Now they were just asking him things hoping they would find some truth.

"So Lupin didn't transform into a werewolf in your home at 146 Ash Drive on-" Moody tried to pull up the date of the last full moon "August 3rd?" He finished.

"No." Tyler said again. They were getting nowhere.

Tyler fidgeted with worry. The people around him were clearly flustered. How long would it take for them to start flinging any question his way? Was that even legal, or did they have to stick to a certain pre-approved script?

"Why was there fresh werewolf blood in your basement." Tyler looked to his left to the back corner of the room where the man from the werewolf capture unit stood picking at his dirty nails.

"A werewolf transformed there." Tyler felt himself saying. Though it was the truth he was amazed that it wasn't the whole truth.

"And it wasn't Lupin?" Moody sat up straighter.

"No."

Tyler saw something flick behind Moody's eyes. The auror cocked his head to the side as the man in the corner asked, "Who was it then?"

A shrapnel bomb of terror exploded in Tyler. It was fear like a thousand paper cuts coming his insides as he fought the potion. He stared at Moody, started fighting the words until he couldn't anymore, "It was-" Tyler flailed and bit his tongue but it was useless, it was coming out one way or the other, "M-"

The door slammed open.

"-E"

A body was thrown onto the table in front of him rattling the metal feet against the floor and hopefully covering the word that had spilt from Tyler's mouth.

Moody's eyes swam quickly from the body, to him, then to the dirty wizard in the corner. Tyler followed his gaze and realized the man had head him His stomach flipped painfully.

"What did he say?" Carrow demanded over the racket.

"Does it matter-" Moody growled, shooting Tyler an odd look, before motioning to the body on the table, "We have Lupin here." The wizard on the table in front of Tyler was groaning into a standing position. If it was possible he looked thinner than Tyler remembered, wirier and a bit afraid. Moody reached out and picked up the man by the scruff of his neck.

Tyler followed the man's ascent to a standing position and finally looked beyond him to the door. Severus stood, black eyes beady and unapologetic. He had found Lupin and turned him in. Tyler's jaw dropped in shock. He almost said his friend's name out loud, but bit his tongue. Severus didn't know him, he reminded himself, they had no connection in the real world.

Tyler felt his world spinning away from him, uncertainty at every turn as Moody yelled, "Someone untie Mr. Evens and take him to my office." There was a brief uprising from the far corner of the room, but Moody quenched it with a glare, "Take him to my office" He reiterated without leaving space for argument. The aurors who had watched Tyler all night scurried around the table and unlocked his cuffs. There was rustling behind him then a vial was pressed to his lips. He drank it without a fight. The potion slipped down his throat and he was relieved to find the room settle. Colors were suddenly firmer and the floating he had been fighting with left completely, he was dropped heavily back into reality with the power to lie once more. But that was all that changed, he knew that he had still given himself away to a room of aurors, and he knew Severus had just handed over an innocent man.

The aurors helped him unsteadily to his feet and walked him around the table. His eyes were to busy trying to read the expressions on Remus and Severus' faces to care where he was being taken. Fear like Tyler had never seen flickered behind Lupin's eyes. He could have sworn he saw doubt in Severus's, but as soon as he was over the threshold Severus's face melted into calm. Tyler heard him follow the aurors as they walked him down a long hall through a few doors, down another hallway and into what must have been Moody's office.

A dark wood desk cut the room in half. Behind the desk were a few filing cabinets and a simple black desk chair. On the side closer to the door was only one cold hard wooden chair. Tyler groaned inwardly as he was dropped into, and subsequently chained to it. He tried to mask his worry with humor, "Can I at least get a sandwich now?" he croaked out, but he couldn't even bring a flicker of a smile to his face. The pair began to moved toward the door without answering, "It doesn't have to be a sandwich. A cracker maybe. Tea? Are you going to give me Harry back?" Tyler carried on for a few seconds but by the time he stopped he knew the aurors had long gone and taken Severus with them. More interesting things than a chatty muggle were taking place elsewhere.

Tyler's brain fought between continued worry for Harry and near panic for the safety of Remus. He wanted to see Severus. He wanted answers for why he had turned him in. It wasn't fair and it wasn't okay. Tyler told Severus the Lupin was innocent. It hadn't mattered. Severus had ignored him. Tyler's head swam as he tried to sort out what he knew about the wizard world and their view of werewolves and what he knew about their justice system. Did they have a king, a grand jury? he couldn't remember. There was something about a minister, but he had to admit he knew almost nothing about their laws and trials. Would Remus be okay?

He sat in hazy contemplation for a long time wondering why he was still being held. Outside the room regular office noises picked up. People, or rather witches and wizards, chatted and a few times paper airplanes fluttered over his head and landed gracefully on the large desk. He was starting to listen in on a conversation about a terrible radio program when the door behind him opened. Moody lumbered over the threshold and walked around the desk.

The auror looked as tired as Tyler felt, but significantly less worried. He had the relieved expression of someone who had just finished a marathon. He sat in his chair and looked boredly at a few sheets of paperwork left on his desk. He grumbled at a streak of smeared ink across one them then finally sat back and looked at Tyler. Tyler tried to look back, but the man's spinning eye was bewildering.

"It's impossible." Moody said simply.

Tyler was at a loss, but his nervous habit stepped in to take over, "I agree. If you had told me a week ago that there was a potion- A simple potion- that could force people to tell the truth I would have told you 'no way!'. Well actually-" Tyler thought about it. He suspected if Severus had told him that bit of information he would have believed him without question. "I would have belie-"

"I meant a muggle can't be a werewolf. They'd die." Moody cut him off without a speck of humor in his voice.

"That too." Tyler nodded, "They would definitely die." Tyler didn't know if he was supposed to agree with Moody or act confused. The man had definitely heard his answer in the interrogation room. The panic in Tyler's chest rose again. He rubbed his right shin with his left foot and prayed that he could lie his way through this. This would be the most important lie of his life.

"There have been almost no recorded cases of it happening." Moody continued, "and certainly if if did, Dumbledore wouldn't have handed that werewolf a hero wizarding community to raise." Moody's magical eye stopped and stared right at Tyler's chest. Tyler wondered if he could see his heart beating much faster than necessary. It dawned on him that Moody held the power to permanently take Harry away from him. In his panic he couldn't stop himself from stuttering, "Is Harry okay? He's okay right? Where is he?"

"He's with Dumbledore." Tyler was only slightly comforted. "You have a sister, am I correct?"

"Petunia." Tyler mumbled, suspecting where this was going.

Moody nodded thoughtfully. Tyler watched with increasing dread as Moody rose to his feet, straightened his auror robes and walked around his desk.

"Where are you going?" The words bubbled out of him.

"I need to talk to Dumbledore about Harry's placement." Moody said from Tyler's side. Tyler didn't have a chance to retort. The door shut behind Moody before Tyler could gather his thoughts.

His body began to shake. The exhaustion of the night was tumbling down into the present confirmation of his greatest fear. He couldn't keep Harry. His chest was pressed as he fought back tears. Petunia is fine, she will be good with him. I'll still get to see him. Tyler repeated every comforting thing he could think of. But it wasn't enough, no amount of reasoning could take away the swirling pain in his stomach. He worried he would be sick. His body ached with loss. His mind ached with the knowledge that everything was about to change.

* * *

After an hour in the Auror department trying to pull information out of anyone he could, Severus returned to Dumbledore's office where he had left Harry before going to the Auror department with Lupin. Dumbledore had promised not to take Harry to his aunt's until things with Lupin were straightened out, and he had to trust him.

Severus sat patiently on a sofa Dumbledore had transformed from a seat in his office. Harry was finally able to sleep after a long night and was taking advantage of it. He layed curled in a pile of blankets Dumbledore had offered. His head, which should have felt like a nonexistent weight on Severus's thigh, felt as like the weight of the world.

The grew bright yellow over the still dewy fields and Severus could feel himself growing anxious. Tyler hadn't been released. The aurors had given him no indication of a timeline. Severus suspected there would be paperwork, and he almost hoped the obliviators would be involved (an act he suspected would be a blessing for Tyler as well) but it shouldn't have taken this long. He tried to reason it away. Perhaps they were waiting for offices to open? Maybe they needed to get signatures from people who weren't available at - Severus checked the grandfather clock in the corner- 9:32 in the morning? There was nothing he could do to speed up the process.

There was nothing to do but wait.

So he did.

An hour later he sat up nervously when Dumbledore stepped back into the room. He knew the headmaster was aware of his and Harry's relationship, but there was a difference between knowing and having it displayed openly, in broad daylight after the crisis was ebbing away. "Any news?" Severus tried to keep the plea for information from his voice. He suspected Dumbledore had heard it anyway.

"None yet." Dumbledore eyed Severus questioningly, "You turned Lupin over to Carrow and Moody."

Severus looked away from the headmaster. He knew he saw disappointment in the blue eyes and he wasn't willing to explain his point of view again. "Yes." He snapped.

"Can I ask where you found him. How?"

Severus absentmindedly rubbed the cloth on the couch's armrest. How much could he tell the headmaster, how much did he want to tell him? It was a strange story anyway. It was strange that he remembered right at the correct moment where to find Lupin and that Lupin was there. He didn't want to be accused of calling the act fate, "It was just a good hunch. A helpful memory at the right time." He explained. "He was at my old apartment. He knew Tyler would know to find him there."

Dumbledore looked pensive, then amused, "But apparently Tyler didn't know." He laughed, "He couldn't even tell them under veritaserum."

"The boy is not bright." Severus agreed lamely. He rubbed his eyes. His day already felt long, and it was still early morning. He itched to find out where Tyler was, to hand over Harry and go back to his house and sleep.

"Is there anything we can do?" Severus asked.

"I have sent an owl to Moody, if there is something we can do, he will let us know."

Severus nodded and slouched down in the the sofa. The waiting continued.


	14. Chapter 13: Together in Misery

**Chapter 13: Together in Misery**

Severus was close to drifting off to sleep with Harry's head on his lap when the fire burst to life and Alastor Moody stepped out. The potion's master was on his feet immediately and shooting Dumbledore a nervous message with his eyes. Dumbledore nodded recognition of his need for secrecy and crossed the room to the old Auror, "Moody." He held out a gnarled hand and shook Moody's scarred one. The Auror's new spinning eye was already scanning the room. It landed on him for a moment and kept going.

"I see Severus and the child are both here." He acknowledged.

"Ah yes. While Harry was getting some well-deserved sleep Severus and I were going over lesson plans for the second year Hufflepuffs."

Moody made a disinterested noise in the back of his throat and hobbled the rest of the way into the office. "I suppose I should thank you for your capture of Lupin." Moody nodded to Severus, "The department owes you."

"You can repay him by not asking where he found him." Dumbledore cut in, and when Moody looked over his shoulder at the Headmaster, Severus could tell Dumbledore had guessed the auror's next question.

"Very well." Moody moved on to his next topic. "The boy seems fine. Have you spoken with Petunia yet?" Severus's heart jolted into his ribcage. Were they still discussing Petunia? He looked down at Harry who was now drooling into a pile of blankets instead of his black robes and a small amount of panic engulfed him.

"I was waiting until daylight. They're a muggle family after all. Possibly not accustomed to midnight visits, and then Harry fell asleep, and it seemed cruel to move him." Dumbledore rattled on.

Moody made a noncommittal noise and slumped into one of Dumbledore's guest chairs. Severus expected Dumbledore to offer the new arrival a lemon drop as he would any unruly student sent to his office, but the two men knew each other too well to play pleasant games. Dumbledore walked around his desk and sat in his own chair without a word.

"How is Lupin?" Dumbledore eventually wondered.

"He's fine. I had to fight like a dog to keep him out of the teeth of the Werewolf capture unit." The admittance surprised Severus, but he remained silent. If he didn't move maybe, they wouldn't kick him out of the conversation. "Carrow won't have the chance to touch Lupin." Moody promised. "I may be suspicious of Lupin, but I know Carrow is a dirty rotten Death Eater. The only reason he was in that interrogation room was because of a directive from the head of the auror department. I know Carrow's a nasty bag of -"

"Alastor." Dumbledore chastised before Moody could cuss up a storm.

"We fought him in the war Albus. I'm not handing Lupin to him."

"I appreciate that." Dumbledore said, "Will there be a trial?"

Moody shrugged and gave Dumbledore a meaningful look. "It's out of my hands." He said. So they had already turned Lupin over to another auror's caseload. That hadn't taken long. Dumbledore looked disappointed, and Severus knew why. Dumbledore wouldn't have nearly as much control over one of his favorite Gryffindors fate if he was no longer Moody's problem.

"And what is to become of Tyler?" Dumbledore wondered.

Both of Moody's eyes moved to Severus indicating he didn't want to discuss Tyler in front of anyone but Dumbledore.

"He's alright." Dumbledore said lightly, "He works with me on protecting Harry and should likely be involved in this discussion anyway.

"The idiot's a werewolf." Moody stated as if scolding another raining day.

Severus glared. He could feel anger rising in himself. Moody didn't have the right to call- Severus calmed himself- "idiot" was just a word, and a word he used to describe Tyler every time he saw him. He shouldn't be annoyed if Moody used it.

"Is he?" Dumbledore feigned surprise.

Moody wasn't impressed, "I understand you overlooking a lot of things Dumbledore, but I do not understand this."

"You understood when I invited Lupin into the Order-"

"And you see how that went!" Moody snapped, "You've knowingly endangered The-Boy-Who-Lived!"

Dumbledore glowered, "I do not believe Remus Lupin to be guilty, as I do not believe Tyler Even capable of hurting a hair on Harry's head."

That was an understatement. Severus scoffed inwardly. There was no one, no one, on the planet better suited to raise Harry James Potter than Tyler. Severus balked at himself. Had he really grown so found of the pair that he was prepared to defend them, even in his own mind? He shook the thoughts out of his mind and tried to calmly follow the conversation at hand.

"Even if Tyler couldn't hurt a flobberworm, the wolf certainly will. I know Lupin was in control of the darkness in him most days of the month. But we're talking about a muggle alone in that muggle world of his. That was reckless of you."

"And still-" Dumbledore pointed out, "a year later and we have a well fed, happy two-year-old who would do anything to stay with the only father he can remember." Dumbledore challenged Moody with his piercing eyes.

"You cannot convince me that it was the right choice." Moody grumbled.

"I don't need to. I am in charge of the boy's placement."

"And I'm in charge or whether or not to turn Tyler into the werewolf registry." Moody reminded. His wild eye stopped before he said, "I don't want to turn him in. You know that. I saw what it did to Lupin during the war. I'm not an advocate for the registry, but Harry's a baby, and I think we all swore to protect him." Moody stared down Dumbledore, asking the Headmaster to dredge up the sincere promises made during the war.

"I understand, Moody. It would be in poor taste if I went against the auror department's wishes. Are you releasing Tyler then?"

"In a few hours. I have to go through paperwork, see if we need to get him obliviated."

"Really?" Dumbledore sounded surprised, "He's already aware of us. Why deny him this fine memory of the wizarding world?"

Moody caught the Headmaster's sarcasm and glared, " _I_ wouldn't." He rose to his feet and crossed the room. "I want the boy at his Aunt's by noon." He scanned the room one last time then turned and stepped into the floo. "Auror offices room 246."

He disappeared in a fiery tornado of green and Severus stayed glued to the spot watching until the flames flicked back to orange.

Once he was gone for certain Severus turned to Dumbledore,"What do I have to do to make sure Harry stays with Tyler?"

Dumbledore's eyes glittered as he looked up and into his eyes. Severus immediately put up a wall to keep any wayward thoughts from the hands of the Headmaster.

"Are you asking for Tyler or are you asking so you can continue to be a part of Harry's life?"

Severus was taken aback by the question.

He was asking-

He was asking in order to keep Harry from Petunia. Certainly, that was the reason. He took a step back and watched Dumbledore carefully, "For Harry." He decided though he couldn't quite be certain if that was true. "He would be happier with Tyler." Severus said as simply and as emotionless as possible.

"But will he be safer?" Dumbledore genuinely wondered.

Severus couldn't help but think back to his own childhood. He was safe, he was in a solid house, with protective wards and wizard parents. No outside threat could have gotten to them. But Lily was happy. Lily was loved. He wondered now that she was dead and he was miserable who had had the better life. What life would he choose for Harry, happiness or safety?

Lily would have voted for happiness. Lily would have voted for love. Severus couldn't bring himself to say that outlaid, though. He was too afraid to admit that he wanted Harry to be loved, loved by Tyler's inhuman ferocity. The boy had that flair of love that he remembered Lily having, and every part of him wanted Harry to have that too. He didn't answer Dumbledore, but the Headmaster must have guessed at what he was thinking because he nodded and said simply, "I will do what I can."

* * *

 _"_ _Okay, you have to take a card."_

 _"_ _What? No way?" Severus protested._

 _"_ _Yes, way!" Lily countered. She pushed the pile of cards closer to Severus. He groaned and picked one of the cards from the pile. "This isn't fair, you know. You and Moss have been playing this game forever. I'm new to it."_

 _"_ _This is a game of luck, and it is fair because you're doing a spectacular job of defying rookie luck."_

 _"_ _Rookie luck?"_

 _"_ _Yeah, it's when you win because you've never played before."_

 _"_ _Moss's not even playing correctly. Some of his cards are backward." Severus pointed out._

 _"_ _Go fish!" Tyler piped up._

 _"_ _Not your turn" Severus grumbled._

 _Tyler wasn't dissuaded, "Go fish" He repeated happily. He reached out and added an 8 of hearts, backward, to his hand._

 _"_ _That has to be cheating." Severus deadpanned at Lily._

 _Lily shrugged and continued with her turn, "Do you have any 3's?"_

 _Severus looked down at his handful of cards and found a red three. With despair, he handed it over, "You must be a legilimens."_

 _"_ _Nope." Lily smiled. She slipped her own three out of her hand and placed the pair in from of her. "How about a 4?"_

 _Severus beamed, "Nope." He heard an echo as he said, "Go Fish." He looked over and saw Tyler had said the phrase with him._

 _Severus and Lily turned their attention to Tyler, "Your turn T." Lily reminded. Tyler squinted at his handful of cards and a considered his next move. "Lily do you have any of these?" He held up five fingers." Lily smiled and shook her head. "Go fish." Despite losing Tyler delightedly picked up another card to add to his already full hand. The cards were barely clasped between his tiny fingers. Severus felt slightly better now that he wasn't the only one losing horribly._

 _It was back around to his turn but before he could play the stairs began to squeak, "Hey kids. Coming down for dinner?" Lily and Tyler perked up. Severus watched them. Their twin green eyes lit up._

 _Severus had never been invited to stay for dinner at Lily's house. They usually met at the park, and when he did come over, he never stayed long enough to eat a meal with them._

 _"_ _You're staying, right?" Lily asked Severus, "Mom makes the best shepherd's pie! Tyler get that card out of your mouth." Tyler spat an ace of clubs out of his mouth and started gathering up the rest of the deck._

 _"_ _I- um-" Severus fumbled for words._

 _"_ _Stay." Lily insisted, and Severus knew he couldn't say "no" to her, or her invitation. Honestly, he was excited about a good meal, even if he was nervous about eating it with the Evans' family. He rose to his feet with Lily and Tyler and realized they probably ate dinner as a family. They probably ate gathered around a large wooden table while their parents asked about their day and chatted about the neighborhood. Severus was unsure about how to conduct himself in such a situation and therefore fell behind as Tyler and Lily rushed out of the room and down the stairs._

 _Severus was the last to enter the dining room, and his fears were immediately realized. The oak table was set with six places. A steaming casserole dish sat in the middle alongside a small vase of flowers. Petunia was helping Mrs. Evan's put out cloth napkins while Mr. Evan's poured glasses of lemonade from a pitcher. "Severus, why don't you sit next to Lils?" The old man suggested. Severus thought about answering, but he didn't need to, Lily took his hand and led him around the table and into a wooden chair with a soft cloth seat._

 _There it was. Right in front of him was everything Severus could have hoped for in one picture. A family of people who loved each other laughing, talking and eating together. There was food always warm and ready for you, and a place at the table. Severus had the sinking realization that his trepidation about eating with them wasn't about fitting in, most of the Evan's already liked him. His fear was that once he experienced it, he would never be that happy again. Tyler clumsily passed him a lemonade across the table, and he realized he didn't want to leave. He never wanted to leave, but another quieter part of himself whispered back, "This isn't for you."_

* * *

It was week since Harry's placement with Petunia before Severus could bring himself to floo to Tyler's house. He knew he had to, in the same way he knew he had to take him in the night his mother passed away, and the day he said "yes" to watching Harry during the full moon. Still he stood by the floo nervously for several moments before he could toss in the powder. He stepped in and spoke the address, but went nowhere. After a few second orange flames began to lick at his robes and he stepped back into his own living room.

He shook out the ashes from his clothes and repaired the singed fabric. Tyler's floo had been disconnected, clearly. Severus suspected Dumbledore had set it up and kept it connected. Now that Harry was not longer there, 146 Ash Drive was just another muggle home. The truth hit Severus like a wave. Tyler was just another muggle.

Tyler was just a muggle.

His every connection to the wizarding world had been taken from him. "Tyler's just a muggle." Severus said to himself. In the back of his mind he could hear the Death Eaters telling him that Tyler was now worthless. Tyler wasn't worth Severus's time. He wasn't worth a second thought. Just a muggle.

He shook his head and suddenly a vision of Lily rose up from among the dark whispers. She making sure Tyler had all of his homework in his bag before they left for school, and making sure he had someone to play cards with and laughing at his horrible magic tricks. Lily was asking Severus to lie to him, and to be his friend even when they couldn't be.

Lily won. Lily always won.

Severus immediately appareled into Tyler's back yard. He trudged through the slightly overgrown thicket and to the backdoor. It felt intrusive to knock (he was already in Tyler's backyard) but he didn't want to walk around the house in wizard garb, and he didn't much care about pleasantries at this point. He knocked at the back door, and when there was no answer he unlocked the simple twist lock and entered the house.

The first thing he noticed was the overwhelming cent of cinnamon and sugar. The house smelled like the inside of a gingerbread house. It was warm, but not from summer heat or family cheer. A heavy feeling of baking cookies overlayed the entire space. Severus looked around. The upturned coffee table had been righted, and the chess table had been replaced at the end, but the pieces were all neatly in their correct places. No tiny fingers had stolen away with a knight, or moved a pawn across the board. In fact the entire room appeared to be devoid of the usual disarray of Tyler's life. There was an emptiness to the decor that took Severus a few moments to find the source of. When he did it was obvious. Harry's belongings were no where to be found. His quaffle wasn't haphazardly thrown on the floor. There were no quidditch figurines on the ground, no small blankets across the couch. His clothes weren't everywhere and there was no vague scent of diapers hanging in the air. That wasn't all though. Severus looked around the room and saw that the family pictures that were usually displayed with pride had been taken from the walls and every surface. Severus did a double take. Had Tyler moved? This seemed like the home of complete stranger, and if it weren't for his favorite ugly lamp on the counter Severus might have believed it was.

"Moss!?" There was no reply, but a few moments later Severus heard a soft clattering of dishes in the kitchen and then the radio was cranked up. It was a muggle rock station. He didn't recognize the words of the song, but Tyler must have because he heard his voice crack as he sang the words as loud as he could.

Severus felt like he was stepping into a wound. After a year Severus could stomach the deep red cuts he found on Tyler every month. It was awful to see him so physically broken and in pain, but he could do it. This however was something different. He faltered as he neared the kitchen. He didn't know if he could step into this particular injury. It cut way deeper than any other. Tyler wasn't crying, or trying ineffectually to get drunk. He was shutting down.

He stepped up to the corner, and then around it and finally got his first look at Tyler since the brief encounter in the interrogation room, and his first _good_ look him since he had dropped Harry at his feet for calling him, "Dad". That felt so long ago now. Like it was a different life lived across a vast ocean.

Tyler was still singing as loud as he could to some muggle song about walking on sunshine. His hair was neatly combed, his face was washed and he was wearing a button down shirt Severus knew was one of his own and not a hand-me-down band t-shirt of James's that a week ago he was so fond of. There were a few racks of cookies already set on the counter and something was bubbling on the stove.

"Moss!" Severus said again, making his voice loud enough to be heard over the radio. Tyler adamantly ignored him. Severus looked back the way he had come, then wearily crossed the room and put a hand on Tyler's shoulder. Tyler shivered at the touch then jerked away. As soon as he was out of Severus's grasp he went directly back to cooking, and ignoring. He was resolute. Severus put his hands into his pockets and considered his next steps.

"Moss are you ignoring me for a reason?"

As if to answer him Tyler didn't respond. The silence sunk in Severus's heart worse than he had anticipated. Tyler talked. When he was mad he talked, when he was afraid he talked, when he was happy, sad, tired, he talked. Severus didn't know what to make of a silent Tyler.

"Are you okay? Just nod." Severus demanded. Tyler pulled a tray of cookies out of the oven and placed them far too lightly on the counter. There was no malice in the action, it was like he existed in a separate world. Severus didn't need this. This wasn't his problem, it shouldn't be his concern, but somehow he couldn't help it. He was being sucked in.

Severus expected Tyler to be distraught about losing Harry, but he wouldn't be ignoring him because of that. In contrast Severus had imagined they would be miserable together one more time, just like they had during every other Evans funeral. But here he was, silent as the grave. Severus wracked his brain then guessed, "Are you angry at me for turning in Lupin?" Tyler didn't react, but Severus continued. "I had to do it. It got you out of the Auror office. It saved you." But it didn't get you Harry back he acknowledged.

Tyler's demeanor changed just a bit. Severus barely noticed it but when Tyler dropped a cookie on the cooling rack with just a bit more enthusiasm than Severus anticipated he caught on. Maybe he was getting somewhere, "There is no way Lupin is innocent. Even if he is he was part of the reason you're a werewolf. He deserves to pay for that if nothing else. I had to turn hi-"

"No you didn't." Tyler snapped. Severus was relieved to finally hear Tyler speak. Somehow the silent treatment from him was worse than a fight.

"Was there another way to protect you?" Severus pressed.

Tyler didn't answer for a long time. He finished taking the cookies off of the baking sheet before admitting quietly, "I don't know."

"They would have kept you indefinitely. They would have figured out you're a werewolf and… I couldn't leave you in the hands of the Werewolf Capture Unit."

"But you could leave Lupin there." Tyler countered.

"Yes. If it meant saving you."

"That's not right. It's not good." Tyler met his eyes with a steady stare.

Severus returned the look, confused. What should "good" have to do with Tyler's anger at him? Severus had made a straight trade, a guilty man for an innocent one and now Tyler was free. Tyler broke eye contact and Severus watched as he continued to do menial tasks around the kitchen. He wiped down a counter, moved a baking tray, and washed a wooden spoon before it dawned on Severus, Tyler had never seen him be a Death Eater. Lily and James and others had seen it first hand. Dumbledore had seen it done knowing it was for the greater good but Tyler had always been purposefully left in the dark by both his sister and James's motley crew. Tyler's anger about Lupin was just the momentary expression of a wider problem. Tyler hated that Severus had to make the hard decisions. Severus spent so much time in his own head, weighing the pros and cons and making specific calculations that he forgot that from the outside, his actions looked callous, "Moss. You know I have to be the bad guy, right?"

"I'm. I'm- I don't want you to have to be the bad guy!" Tyler's wavering eyes finally, sorrowfully met Severus's, "You're a good guy." Tyler told him. His sincerity took the breath from Severus's lungs. He forced his face to stay neutral.

"I'm not." Severus insisted. "I'm not a good guy Moss, You need to understan-"

Tyler didn't let him finish the sentence, he groaned and pulled at fistfuls of his hair in frustration. At the sudden movement Severus could see tears dislodge from his eyes and run down the dark circles under his eyes.

"Tyler. I am only useful to Dumbledore as a spy. I am only good to this world because I can play both sides."

"I thought the war was over." Tyler reminded.

"Not for everyone." Severus said.

Tyler turned away from him and mumbled something at the ceiling, "Moss!" Severus wasn't sure he could regain the boy's attention. He was staring up and away as Severus said, "Sometimes I have to do bad things to keep face with worse people. That's how it is. Someday the world is going to get ugly again. Horrible things will happen again, and I will have to do horrible things… Moss!" Severus reached out and spun Tyler back around to face him. He was openly sobbing now, his hands still tangled in his black hair.

"No." Tyler repeated. It sounded like a plea, but also a resignation. Severus was getting to him, and it was killing him. If he knew this truth would have affected Tyler in this way, maybe he would have made a different decision. Maybe he would have tried to keep his turning in Lupin a secret. Tyler didn't need to know every horrible thing Severus had ever done. He didn't need to be the nail in the coffin of Tyler's innocence. He had never wanted to be that.

"I'm sorry, Tyler."

"No."

"It's how it has to be." Severus continued to insist.

"No. You're good. You're good. You're good." Tyler repeated until he wore out the words, until they were just whispers of a prayer on his lips, "You're good." He said one more time at the ceiling.

Severus waited until Tyler's arms dropped to his sides and his will to fight had drained, "I will always fight for you and Harry." Severus said as clearly as possible. He took a step closer to Tyler and made sure the boy heard him, "I've screwed up enough to be able to promise that."

"Why can't you promise to fight for everyone?" Tyler sniffed.

Severus paused then answered sincerely, "I couldn't protect _you_ if I did."

Tyler stuffed his hands into his jean pockets and a considered the answer. It wasn't what he wanted, Severus knew that. Tyler wanted heroes and idols. He wanted everything to be either right or wrong. But Severus also knew that somewhere deep down Tyler had to be able to understand grey areas, and Severus was a giant grey area. "I don't know what to do with that." Tyler finally said. He rocked back and forth on his heals and tried to come up with something.

"You don't need to do anything with it." Severus said calmly. "It's not your job." Severus watched Tyler's face scrunch up. He was desperately trying to comprehend the truth Severus had revealed.

"So you have to pretend to be a bad guy…to do good things?"

It wasn't an eloquent or nuanced explanation, but Severus suspected it was the best he was going to get out of Tyler. "Yes." He shrugged wearily.

"You're a spy" He clarified.

"Yes."

"I knew this already. I just didn't realize it." Tyler reminded himself, "I even said as much last year. I just didn't." Tyler tried to pull words out of the sky. "I didn't get it." He looked around his kitchen, to his piles of cookies and breads, then pressed his hands into his eyes. He stood that way for several moments, and Severus was beginning to wonder what was going on in his broken brain when he finally dropped his hands and exhaled, "I need to get out of this house. It's making me crazy."

Severus fumbled on Tyler's sentence. He knew Tyler was going nuts in his house. The place was sterile clean and uncomfortably organized. Tyler didn't need a drink, he needed a keg and a tornado to rip through his house. Severus had neither, but somehow, once more in his life he found himself doing what he least expected from himself, "How about we have some beers at my place?" Severus could have kicked himself for suggesting it, but if history had taught him nothing else it was that he could never say "no" to Tyler's sad face.

"Real beer?" Tyler asked, surely thinking that Severus would trick him again with Butterbeer.

"Real beer." Severus agreed, wanting a drink himself.

"All in." Tyler threw down the towel that was tucked into the waistband of his jeans and pushed up the sleeves of his fancy muggle shirt. He followed Severus into the garden to apparate to Spinner's End.

* * *

Dumbledore sat back in his chair. It had been a busy week. Harry had been moved, Lupin had been sent to Azkaban and Dumbledore had found himself at the ministry fighting for a trial almost every day. When he wasn't there he was doing his best to keep Hogwarts running smoothly. He hadn't had a chance to think, and now that he did his mind wandered back to Severus's words, "What do I have to do to make sure Harry stays with Tyler?" He wasn't sure what either of them could do. Or if they should do anything at all.

In truth Dumbledore was a little shocked to see how attached Severus had become to the child. He worried that that attachment would cause problems down the line. There was something about Harry that connected him to Voldemort, and the prophesy didn't bode well for him, "Neither can live while the other survives." The words had rung in Dumbledore's head as he watched Severus leave his office. A man so attached to a child would never let the boy die to save the wizarding world, and Dumbledore couldn't risk the alternative.

Or could he?

Love had saved Harry Potter's life before, who was he to say it couldn't do it again? Dumbledore steepled his knobby fingers before his lips and pondered the decision. Petunia would love Harry, of course she would, in her own way, but Tyler and Severus, they could protect him, give him everything he needed plus some. Perhaps it would be good to foster that type of relationship? Perhaps…

* * *

Tyler and Severus were only a few beers in before they found themselves on Severus's kitchen floor playing go fish with a deck of exploding snap cards. They were the only cards in Severus's house and Tyler was instantly intrigued with the idea of a magical deck so they spread them out and each took a handful. The game had dissolved quickly, but they still each had a handful of the magical cards and were dubiously studying them in-between sips on strong wizard ale. Their conversations had been light. Tyler talked about food. He had made a lot of food in the last couple of days. They talked about muggle construction and wizard plants. Tyler had cracked up over the idea of Mandrakes. It took a while before anything with substance rose back to the surface.

"I applied for a job at the corner store." Tyler hiccuped as he took another drink and handed over a jack of clubs to Severus.

Severus felt the conversation bump against the edge of seriousness, to the edge of "I have nothing to do now that I'm not raising my nephew." He didn't know if he should foster that type of conversation, but found himself asking, "Why don't you just go back to school?" Severus slurred, "Weren't you going to be a healer?"

"Meh…Maybe I'll go back in a few years? I've been thinking about life a lot lately. I dunno what to do about it."

"No one does." Severus said, then grumbled, "Don't become a teacher. I suggest you do not become a teacher. Little heathens."

Tyler squinted toward the ceiling and Severus amended his statement, "Fine. You might actually be a good professor. You like kids. You act like kids."

"Your turn." Tyler reminded.

"Your turn."

"No you go again because you guessed right."

"I hate this game." Severus mumbled as he tried to get his focus to zoom back in on his cards. They were frustratingly blurry, "Do you have any eights?"

"No…Go fish!" Tyler said just as excitedly as he had at age four.

"You know what I was thinking about Sev?"

Severus humored him again, at least Tyler was talking, and pleasantly at that, "What?"

"Moss…is a good name for me."

Severus didn't speak, but granted Tyler an unimpressed stare.

"I grow on you." Tyler smirked, then snorted, then burst out laughing as if he were the funniest person on earth. Severus really wanted to hex him, a feeling that only intensified when he felt the corner of his mouth fight its way up.

"Oh my god did you just try to smile?" Tyler over to look up at Severus and his eyes grew wide with glee, "I haven't seen you smile since Petunia shot milk out her nose at Christmas dinner that one time!"

"Shut up." Severus tried to cover a growing grin on his face- damn alcohol- before the old memory could force a laugh out of him.

"Oh my god. You'r thinking about it." Tyler giggled, "You're thinking about Petunia laughing so hard at a pun that she shot milk out her nose." Tyler rolled back onto the ground giggling and Severus could feel himself losing the fight. A second later he felt a chuckle force it's way past his chest and out of his mouth. The feeling was so shocking he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Somehow it hurt, or was that not pain, was that happiness? In lieu of sitting there confused he reached out and playfully punched Tyler in the leg for making fun of him.

"Ouch, meanie." Tyler rolled over onto his back and proceeded to grin at Severus as the wizard tried to cover his amusement by finishing off another beer.

"We should stop drinking." Severus suggested after setting down the bottle. He realized he hadn't had this much to drink in a long time.

"I should stop drinking. You should keep drinking forever if it makes you uninhibited enough to actually laugh." Tyler decided. He leaned up on his elbows and stared at his old friend.

Severus tried his best to ignore him.

"Okay. Have you heard the one about the three guys who walk into a bar?" Tyler asked falling onto his back once more and trying to come up with another joke, anything just to witness another smile wrinkle Severus's face, "No it was two guys. Two guys walked into a bar."

Severus didn't have a chance to tell Tyler to shut up- something rumbled in the living room and then he heard the tell-tale sound of a fire roaring to life. Someone was flooing in. Severus grabbed his wand and prepared for the worst.

"Severus?"

Severus's brain overloaded. Dumbledore was in his living room and he was drunk on his kitchen floor with Tyler Evans.

He cussed and looked over at Tyler, "It's my boss!" He hissed.

Tyler's mouth made a giant "O" shape before he blathered, "What'd'we'do?" In one breath. Severus froze and then decided they would have to fake sobriety. He was usually much better at making plans. Much better at thinking through… oh the alcohol was destroying him.

"Severus!" The voice was getting closer to their position. Severus rose unsteadily to his feet before he remembered he had a spell for this situation. With a wave of his wand and a whisper he managed to slightly douse his obvious inebriation. He shot the same spell at Tyler and pulled the muggle to his feet. They were both looking slightly more respectable by the time Dumbledore rounded the corner into the kitchen. "Ah there you are." He said with an air of delight, "and with Tyler as well. Well that makes my job simpler doesn't it?"

"Sure does, professor." Tyler slurred. Severus elbow him in the chest and to his surprise Tyler immediately stopped talking.

Dumbledore's blue eyes searched them over his half moon spectacles but he didn't comment on their current state, "I have news."

Severus didn't want to get his hopes up. He didn't want them to be crushed, so he said as few words as possible to get the Headmaster to continue with his announcement, "Okay sir. What is it?"

"I've spoken with Alastor Moody after receiving several letters from a one Petunia Dursley, who is rather confused about Harry's sudden arrival at her house." Severus wanted to scream at Dumbledore to get on with it, but he held his tongue as he tried to glare the next words out of the Headmaster's mouth. Dumbledore breathed and finally said, "I have worked out a way for Harry to be returned into Tyler's custody."

All air was expelled out of Severus's lungs in disbelief. He stared in shock until he could felt Tyler fumbl then almost fall to the floor behind him. He turned quickly to keep the unsteady muggle on his feet. Tyler proceeded to hold a wad of his robes in his hands like a lifeline. Severus snapped his attention back to Dumbledore, "How?" He managed.

"At this time only Moody knows of Tyler's condition. He wants it to stay that way, but he also worries about Harry being in the same home as Tyler during his transformations. I just need to give him assurances that he won't be." Dumbledore gave them both a stare that said "I assume you already have this worked out?"

"Assureded." Tyler slurred and then bumped Severus so he would agree.

"Yes, certainly Headmaster. He won't be near Tyler."

"Totally far away and safe." Tyler added with several overenthusiastic nods. Severus shot him another glare to get him to stay quiet but Tyler just continued nodding until Dumbledore said,

"There is some paperwork to figure out, but I expect Harry will be back with you by tomorrow." Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, "Do you think you'll be fit to take him by then?"

Tyler raised a hand to his forehead in a crooked salute, "Yessir."

Dumbledore seemed less certain than Tyler felt, "Very well then. I should be off."

Dumbledore left them wavering on their feet in the kitchen. Severus couldn't believe his ears. He wondered if he had fallen into an alcohol-induced stupor and this was all a cruel dream. Tyler had the same look on his face.

"Did that just happen?" Tyler asked.

Severus had to admit, "It think that just happened."

"What do I do now?" Tyler swayed.

"How about we put your place back the way it belongs?" Severus suggested, "The lack of pictures was unsettling."

"I put all of them in Lily and James's old room. I don't want to go in there." Tyler frowned.

"We're going to have to do it at some point." Severus felt Tyler's grip on his robes tighten. They would have to do it eventually.


	15. Chapter 14: You're Family

**Chapter 14: You're Family**

As soon as they were back at Tyler's they put on tea. They needed something to dampen their inebriation before they could begin putting the house back into its usual state of disorder. They chatted amicably as they put childproofing equipment back in the electric sockets and knives in the upper cabinets. Tyler put away the several plates of cookies he had made and Severus tripled checked that the wards were back on the basement.

"What else?" Tyler asked while sipping at his third cup of tea.

Severus didn't answer right away. He slipped around Tyler and looked at the pile of papers he had scattered back on the kitchen table, then asked, "Where're all the pictures?"

Tyler fidgeted then said quietly, "In the spare bedroom. I kinda' just shoved everything in there."

Severus looked up and caught Tyler's green eyes before they darted down to the laminate floor.

"Lily and James's old room?" Severus asked, knowing the answer before Tyler nodded. The muggle chewed his bottom lip nervously. They both knew what the other was thinking, it was just a matter of time before one of them would say it out loud.

Severus took a drink from his own cup of tea and rubbed the back of his neck. They would have to face it eventually, whether it was this year or the next or the year after that, eventually Harry would need his own room, or Tyler would have to move, or an of a number of wild possibilities would force them into cleaning the extra room.

This was their mountain. Their Everest, but maybe, Severus thought, he still had just enough alcohol in his system to do it, and perhaps with Tyler next to him it wouldn't be so bad? Tyler loved Lily as much as he did after all, and whatever sadness he had in his own mind would be mirrored in Tyler's. Severus worked to convince himself they could do it together before he decided aloud, "We should sort it all out. Clean the room." It would take a long time, but Tyler wasn't getting Harry back until tomorrow and he suspected the Evans boy wouldn't sleep much that night. They could take as long as they needed.

Tyler seemed to think about the proposition. "It's a bunch of Lily's stuff," he warned lamely.

Severus tried to shrug like it didn't bother him, though he could feel his palms sweating at the mere thought of having to dig through her old dresses and artwork. "Someone's gotta do it," he said. "We can't leave your house looking like a heartless showroom."

Tyler smiled at the description and finally looked up at Severus, "Fair enough. I've been thinking Harry'll need his own room soon anyway."

Severus remembered the mess that was Tyler's room with the baby crib stuffed off to the side, "I would agree."

Like ripping off a bandaid they both marched up the stairs with Gryffindor-esque determination, but as soon as they reached the doorknob, Tyler turned on his heal and buried himself behind Severus's shoulder. "You open it," he mumbled into Severus's thick black robes.

Severus's face twisted to mock disgust as he looked over his shoulder at the younger man, "Really?" but when he looked back at the door he, too, was frightened by the prospect. He paused, letting a shiver of ice run down his back then realized he was being pathetic. He couldn't really be afraid of objects, and certainly not muggle ones. With one last scoff he reached out, turned the knob and pushed the wooden door open. With forced bravado he spun and gestured to Tyler that the act of opening to door was clearly simple.

Tyler wasn't paying attention, though. His green eyes were fixed on the bedroom, on his sister's belongings and the piles of Harry's toys and pictures he had thrown in their over the last few days.

"Wow," he said breathlessly.

Severus looked over his shoulder, expecting to see something breathtaking where earlier it had just been boxes, but it was still just a room, a messy storage room.

"Tyler have you actually looked in here since Lily died?" Severus wondered aloud. His eyes pinged around the dusty grey area trying to find what had caught the other man's eye.

Tyler looked sheepish for a moment then shook his head. Severus saw him out of the corner of his eye. His black locks of hair flopped around his face leaving him looking like a bed-headed three year old.

"What's wow then?" Severus asked when Tyler didn't clarify his thoughts. When he had suggested cleaning out the room he had expected tears, or a frown from Tyler at least. He expected frailty and heartache that matched his own, but he should have known better, this was Tyler.

Tyler's mouth opened, then closed then he opened it again and breathed, "Just life, Lily's life." Tyler stepped around Severus and then over a mess of children's Quidditch toys. He reached the bed where a pile of flower-pattered dresses sat. He picked them up and to Severus's amazement his winning smile fell back into it's usual place. "Our grandmother made this dress for Lily when she was eight. She made me a matching shirt out of the same material." Tyler held up a paisley green dress, "You can imagine why she wore the dress more than I wore the shirt." Severus couldn't, the tacky shirt was exactly Tyler's style; Uniquely embarrassing.

Severus stepped up to the edge of the room and stopped. Tyler's joy was unsettling and he didn't know what to do with it.

Tyler tossed the dress aside and picked up the next. He held it to his nose and breathed. Severus could see Tyler's classic teary eyes watering up, but when he pulled the cloth away from his face he was still grinning, the delight bouncing up his face and into his eyes, "smell like her, and also like a burning house, but mostly like her. They should have had a daughter, she could have inherited all of these," Tyler sighed. He threw a fake angry fist in the air and spun it around like an cartoon villain in one of the Saturday morning cartoons he used to make Severus watch. "Meh, maybe Harry and I can make aprons out of them."

He flipped through the pile of clothes but then quickly moved on to a box. "It's like christmas," He grinned. Dust flew as he popped open the lid and saw that it was filled to the top with journals, dolls, picture books and an odd trophy or two. "She loved this doll," Tyler continued his monologue, pulling a fraying object out of the box. "She called it Berta, or something. I dunno I named her Fran the man 'cause Petunia cut off all her hair and she looked like a guy."

Severus stared in wonder as Tyler cheered and told stories about everything he found. Severus recognized most of it. He knew the favorite doll, and the spelling bee trophy Lily had been so proud of in second grade. He recognized her unique art style from in a stack of chalk drawings from third grade. He even remembered the wretched ball of knitting Lily had thrown aside in fourth year after her twentieth tangled mess. "She was never good at hand crafts like that," Tyler mumbled as he put down the yarn and picked up a stack of Lily's favorite paperback children's book. "Harry might like these," he said. Tyler's smile didn't waver. His joy didn't miss a beat, for every object that brought a tug of despair to Severus's heart Tyler's face glittered with amusement. He even laughed. Laughed! "Oh my god Looloo!" Tyler held up a sock puppet with one eye and floppy ears and couldn't contain his peel of laughter, "She and 'Tuni scared the bejeezus out of me with this. I thought he was a monster in my closet!" Tyler tried to breathe through the laughter, "I love this." Tyler tugged the puppet off his hand and dug further into the box.

Severus looked down at his feet, stuck stubbornly on the wooden hallway landing. He was right after all, it was easier to clean the room with Tyler. The other man seemed to have the situation under control, and Severus didn't need to do anything. Tyler wasn't frightened by the objects, or saddened, and he knew just what to do with everything. At Severus's suggestion they had started piles. One for things they should keep out for Harry, things that needed to be stored either in the attic or in a locked box in the basement, and random things that could be tossed or donated, but Severus hadn't yet helped sort anything himself. Some piece of him worried he would kill Tyler's joy. His own melancholy would be like a raincloud during a picnic, and Severus didn't want that. Maybe a quiet part of even loved watching Tyler work. Watching him re-live Lily's life with as all the fervor and delight of a child reading their favorite book was… nice? And Lily had been happy when she was alive, for the most part, she had also been full of love so this was fitting. Tyler's stories were the memories Severus wanted to keep, not the memories tainted by war and what could have been. So he waited by the door as Lily's little brother showed him every piece of Lily's life with the care and love of someone much younger. "I bought her this," Tyler laughed at a small plastic deer with one missing ear and fading color on one side, "I can't believe she kept it." Tyler grinned and tossed it into a pile of things to donate.

"That's the donate pile," Severus reminded, sure it had been a mistake.

Tyler looked up. Severus hadn't said much through the process, letting Tyler carry on his usual monologue, but Tyler listened when he did make suggestions.

"Yeah. I know," Tyler said. "It's a deer thing I got her at the penny store. It's ridiculous." Tyler went back to the box in front of him, but Severus couldn't let the issue drop.

"Buy you gave it to her-"

Tyler shrugged again. He had pulled a few pictures out to the bottom of the box had begun looking through them carefully. " I think we can frame some of these for Harry," He said holding up a horrifying picture of Severus and Lily on the couch looking over a coffee table book of remarkable bridges, or something.

Severus brushed away the photo comment. "She obviously liked it if she kept it," he insisted. He didn't know why this was so important to him. As Tyler had said, it was just a deer, but there was something in the way Tyler tossed aside his gift to her that irritated him.

Tyler looked up from the pictures and then over to the toy, "Do you want it?" he wondered.

Severus couldn't say he did. It was small and plastic, and brown. It was cheep, "Not really."

"Neither do I, and I think Harry would just eat it." Tyler flipped a picture over in his hand and mumbled something about their old pet dog. Severus pulled at the cuff of his robe and tried not to let his eyes wander to the bed.

 _"_ _Lily do you think Severus could teach me how to do that thing where you pour milk into a funnel and it disappears. I saw a magician doing it on t.v.-"_

 _"_ _Tyler, Severus doesn't do that kind of magic," Lily reminded for the hundredth time. She stuffed her hands into her pockets and hoped that Severus would meet them on the walk home. October's chilly air was whipping at her winter coat and she wanted to find out what their plans were for that afternoon. Yesterday they had planned on playing in the woods, but now she wasn't so sure that was a good idea._

 _"_ _I have a dollar. Can we stop by the penny store on the way home so I can get some bubblegum?" Tyler asked, surprising Lily by changing the subject from magic._

 _Lily shrugged. The corner store wasn't far from home and wouldn't be out of their way. "Sure," She said, and Tyler beamed in anticipation._

 _"_ _I'm thinking of getting grape flavor this time. I know I didn't like it last time I got it, but if I try it again, maybe I'll like it. Mom says that can happen. Mostly with peas, but-" Tyler rattled on. Lily picked up their pace as they neared the corner where the store was located. Severus hadn't met them yet and it seemed like they should just hurry home._

 _They were only a few steps from the front door when a pack of students jostled around them. They elbowed between the Evans's and turned around with predatory stares. Lily knew these kids. They were in her grade, and though they usually ignore her and her few friends they weren't above taunting other students._

 _"_ _What's up ginger?" The tallest of the group, and therefore their leader joked. The two boys on either side cackled at the apparent joke. Lily ignored them, grabbed Tyler's shoulder and tried to step up to the door of the store._

 _"_ _You going to the penny store?" The boy on the right asked, blocking Tyler's way._

 _"_ _Let us by," Lily didn't want to bother getting in a fight with these boys, they weren't worth her time, but they were blocking her brother's way. They were a good foot and a half taller than Tyler and instead of looking like they would blow away on a wide day they were built thick like tree trunks._

 _"_ _Let my brother go it," Lily said, exasperated. She stuck out and arm to tried and brush the boy aside, but he didn't budge._

 _"_ _Wait, Tim!" The taller boy had noticed something and slapped his friends stomach, "Oh, God! Ginger is_ that _your brother?" He sounded excited, like a cat who had just cornered a mouse._

 _"_ _Yes," Lily snapped, not liking where this was going._

 _The boys all laughed, until their leader gasped, "Harry Houd-weeny is your brother!" They couldn't catch their breaths, like this was the funniest thing they had every heard._

 _The boy blocking the door turned to Tyler and asked, "still trying to make that fake bird disappear?"_

 _Tyler didn't hear, or was ignoring the boy's rudeness because he perked up, "I made it work the other day!" Tyler fished in his brightly colored jacket and continued, "I'm also trying to do this trick where-" he didn't get a chance to finish, the older boys were laughed right over his words. That, more than the name calling seemed to bother Tyler. His chubby cheeks puffed out and his black eyebrows scrunched over his eyes. Their disinterest in magic was befuddling. Lily shuffled Tyler behind herself and snapped, "Leave him alone!"_

 _"_ _Why would we do that?"_

 _"_ _Just back off." Lily took a threatening step forward and the center boy seemed to consider the danger for a second before remembering he had someone on either side of him._

 _He straightened out and said, "Ha! Don't you know your little brother's a freak Evans?'_

 _"_ _Don't call him that!" Lily shoved the boy hard in the chest._

 _He stumbled back and when he regained his footing he leaned forward to yell at her but a large wad of cotton had taken the place of words, puffing out of his mouth in soggy wet globs. His friends eyes grew two sizes and they all turned and scattered._

 _Lily shivered, but not because of the weather. She had accidentally used magic. She turned slowly, knowing what she would see. Tyler was standing slack jawed in awe. Lily reached out and popped his mouth shut._

 _"_ _Go get your candy," she directed him, but Tyler didn't budge. He had shaken himself out of awe and was now looking at her with a small frown on his innocent face._

 _"_ _Why are you sad?" Tyler wondered earnestly._

 _Lily grumbled. She knew the few angry tears trying to escape her eyes would give her away. She huffed and wiped the threat away with the back of her hands, "I'm not, now go get your candy, and hurry up." Tyler seemed skeptical , but skipped into the store at his sister's instructions. He had just bound over the threshold when Lily glanced down the street and saw a familiar brooding face. A small smile crept onto her face. Severus would be able to understand, he would calm her down about her use of accidental magic, and someone using the word "freak", even if it wasn't directed at her._

 _"_ _Sev!" She called out, and she could see the dark face perk up just a bit._

 _"_ _Hey lily!" Severus jogged the last few steps up to the penny store and stopped next to her._

 _"_ _How's it going?" Lily asked as soon as they were side by side._

 _Severus shrugged. "I'm glad you're out of class," he answered, avoiding saying anything substantial about how bad his day might have been. "I saw some freaked out kids running down the street." He raised an eyebrow and waited for an explanation he knew she had._

 _Lily curled into her jacket sheepishly but to her amusement Severus just grinned, "oops."_

 _"_ _Yeah, Oops." Lily repeated, and she could feel the knot in her chest untangle itself. It surprised her how easy it was for him to make her feel better. She smiled as the bell on the penny store door rang and Tyler sprang out._

 _"_ _Did you get your candy?" Lily asked, spinning and looking at his fist wrapped tightly around something._

 _"_ _Nah." Tyler unwrapped his fingers and held something out. "I got you this to cheer you up instead." In his hands was a small plastic deer, "You like deer and this one is cute and small." He grinned._

 _"_ _But your bubblegum money?" Lily frowned._

 _"_ _I found some apple flavored when I was looking for my deck of cards."_

 _Lily smiled and took the small deer from his hands, "I love it" She thanked. And it did cheer her up, deer were one of her favorite creatures to see in the woods where they played and this one reminded her of those warm summer days._

Severus tilted his head to the side, "she kept that in her school bag at Hogwarts, maybe Harry would want it when he's older?"

"Huh?" Tyler looked up from the stack of pictures, a few of the best prints held between his lips.

"Lily used to keep it with her all the time." Severus said, pointing at the object again. "I just remembered why it's so familiar."

Tyler's face tried to contort to a confused countenance without dropping the pictures in his mouth back onto the pile. "Wrilly?" He asked around the glossy paper.

Severus nodded. He looked that ground where the hallway carpet turned to the peach carpet of the bedroom and swallowed his fear. He stepped into the spare bedroom and slunk over to the bed as if his presence would somehow shake Tyler's optimism from the room and plunge it into the blackness of his own dreary misery.

He picked the small plastic toy from the bed and flipped it over in his hand. It was barely the size of his palm. Tyler was looking up at him with pinched eyebrows. Severus didn't like that look. There was too much meaning in it. "What pictures did you find," Severus asked, hoping it would distract him. Tyler perked up and looked back down at the stack of pictures trying to find the ones he wanted to show Severus. While the boy wasn't looking Severus slipped the deer into his robe pocket.

Tyler found a few photos, looked up, then patted the ground next to him inviting Severus to join him on the floor and look through them. Severus glanced around the room, certifying that there were no witnessess to this event, or perhaps hoping Tyler was motioning to someone else. He felt like he might float away. He looked longingly back toward the door- toward safety, to a place not dripping with painful memories, but then he looked down at Tyler. Severus knew what he was about to do. There was no one to witness this, the marauders were all dead or imprisoned, Dumbledore knew about him and Tyler and Lily was dead. The only people Severus could feel embarrassed in front of were gone. He was left with just himself to judge, and it was making him miserable. He stood for just a moment, letting this sink in, before taking seat next to Tyler and taking as small stack of photos from his lap. He was already in the room sitting down, perhaps if he tried, if he pretended he was Tyler he could enjoy the photos for what they were instead of mourning the past that was lost. He swallowed his fear and held up the first photo.

* * *

In the wee hours of the morning Tyler looked around the re-disorganized house. Pictures had been replaced, toys had been dropped on the floor and children's books had been re-stacked on the shelfs. The general homey disarray had been recreated with loving care.

They had organized the extra bedroom and began to move some of Harry's things into it. They agreed not to move Harry's bed until Severus could find a few more protective charms to place over it in case something like the previous week's events ever happened again.

Everything felt right and soon everything _would_ be right. Harry would be home, and Tyler could be his guardian again. But he knew it wouldn't go back to the way it was. It couldn't. Something had changed in him. He hand't been away from Harry for more than a night, once a month for almost a year. Although everything in the last week had been terrible, it had given him space to breathe. Unwanted space, but space nonetheless, and maybe it was the full night's sleep, or the quiet, or the fact that there was an entire wizarding government that didn't think he should be allowed to raise a child, but something had started gnawing at him, and Tyler couldn't help but wonder if the wizards were right. Even after all of Severus's warnings and trainings Tyler hadn't been able to keep Harry safe from his own idiocy or an onslaught of wizards breaking into his house.

He had always wondered if he was just phoning it in as a grown up, as an adult, as a parent, but it never seemed to matter until someone else noticed. During the last week it really became obvious how lost he was. He was remembering things. His bills were barely getting paid, he owed Vernon Dursley money to cover a heating bill, sometimes he forgot to buy groceries, and twice he had fed Harry food that he later found out he shouldn't have fed a toddler. He wasn't doing great.

Severus followed Tyler into the living room with last detail, and as the Potions Master set down the chess board on the coffee table Tyler could feel his heart wrench. The last time they had played chess Harry had almost destroyed the board and he still didn't know why. How could he be a parent and not know why Harry had been upset? Severus stood up straight, and Tyler heard himself blather, "Severus you think I can do this right? You believe I can do this." He didn't know if it was the late hour, or the shock of getting Harry back, but it was all suddenly hitting him at once. Everything that had been entrusted to him, and everything that he might not be, was hurtling toward him and he needed someone to tell him it would be okay. He needed Lily to tell him it would be okay, but she wasn't there, and neither was his mother, but Severus was there, and that was just as good, "I'm not a wizard, or even a real grown up!"

Severus was taken aback. Tyler had never been self-conscious, or nervous, or pessimistic. Severus had once seen him, at age eleven, hold the enamored attention of eight pretty high-school girls with a series of increasingly theatrical magic tricks without batting an eye. Tyler didn't know nervousness, or fear, but still the worries bubbled form his perpetually active mouth.

"Like what if one of those Death Eaters comes after him, and I can't keep him safe from that. Or a vampire. I don't have enough garlic for that!"

Severus tried to say something to shut Tyler up. He was reminded sickly of a year before, when Tyler had sat half dead on the floor of the kitchen watching helplessly as a hungry Harry banged a pot against the fridge. Severus had wondered then if Tyler could truly take care of Harry. Those worries had faded for Severus, but now Tyler was rightfully wondering about them himself.

Severus chewed mulled everything over in his mind trying hard not to show his concern on his face then expelled, "Harry was fine with you." The determined tone tentatively silenced Tyler. "What makes you think you can't do this?" Severus said, a little more gently.

"I don't know." Tyler looked exhausted, staring a bit blearily at the far wall. Severus had seen that look before after a full moon. "I was looking at everything. I… I'm running out of money and I can't get a job with a kid 'cause I'm too scared to leave Harry with anyone, and- I - the house is always a mess, and sometimes Harry and I just eat toast for dinner… and he called me 'Dad', and that's like, that's a big deal, what if I mess up, what if I'm a horrible parent? I can't live up to James and Lily."

Severus snorted in derision but tried to hide it.

"What!?" Tyler demanded. His attention had finally returned to Severus.

Severus's parents were horrible at being parents. The idea that Tyler could imagine himself as a terrible parent was nothing short of disgusting and amusing to Severus.

"What if they're right?" Tyler pouted, "What if I'm just a kid and can't do this?" Tyler sounded every bit of the petulant 20-year-old he was as he demanded an answer from Severus.

It took some calculated lying for Severus to say, with no room for argument, "You can. You can and you have to."

Tyler's face scrunched up in an attempt at disbelief he couldn't quite pull off.

"You'll never run out of money-" Severus promised with a sigh "and Harry's got more than he needs."

"Obviously not." Tyler walked to the kitchen and returned with a piece of paper. Severus saw the ripped corner from the week or so ago when Tyler had ripped it out of his hand. When Tyler held it up Severus saw that it was a bank statement declaring an empty bank account.

"I have money," Severus said reluctantly. Dumbledore was gong to pay him to teach. He wouldn't let Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, starve.

"But what about us getting attacked?" Tyler asked.

"What have I always promised?" Severus asked carefully.

Tyler thought about it. "You'll protect us?" he mumbled the guess.

Severus's heart tangled itself into a mangled knot. "And I did," he lied. It was Severus's years of playing two sides that made him able say this with confidence instead showing the crushing fear he felt in his chest. He could still fail the Evans family, even now but Tyler needed to hear about safety more than he needed to hear truth. It was just like when he was thirteen and Severus and Lily pretended he wasn't a Death Eater. He would lie to keep Tyler innocent and calm. "You're not in Azkaban," he said, "and Harry's coming back to you."

Severus saw the last argument on Tyler's lips. Was he good enough, could he be as good as Lily and James, could he be a parent? Severus couldn't find his own words to tell Tyler what he was thinking, but he felt he needed to say something. Lily would have said something encouraging, and if not her, Tyler's father or mother, but Tyler didn't have any of those people, he had Severus, and unlike Tyler's family, Severus didn't have lips that spoke from the heart. He fumbled to beat Tyler to speaking, "Dumbledore asked me if Harry would be safe with you?" He bit out.

Tyler stared dumbly at him, and Severus struggled to be sincere. "Um . . . My parents-" he started lamely, "they gave me a roof over my head and food to eat." Tyler squinted, then nodded that he was following. Severus didn't know what Tyler knew of his childhood. He saw everything through rose-colored glasses, but maybe he had some understanding of who his parents were. Severus continued clearly nonetheless, "with Petunia and Vernon Harry will always have food to eat and a roof over his head. He'll be safe but-" Severus fought himself to say the next words, "Moss, you'll play with Harry, and hug him, and that's probably important too. You'll be a good parent." Severus had to force out every word. He felt uncomfortable trying to express what he meant. He felt uncomfortable that he was even thinking it, but Tyler was one of the most loving humans on the stupid planet, and he would be a good parent. His words felt like a hollow shadow of what he wanted to express, what he wanted Tyler to know. He could only hope Tyler understood, that Severus's words could live up to one one-hundredth of the what Lily or Mrs. Evens would have said. He wasn't sure Tyler understood until his green eyes warmed and a second later he was draped over Severus's shoulders suffocating him in a hug.

"Thank you," He sniffed into Severus's robe. A great burden had been lifted from Tyler's heart, or at least shifted to be shared with Severus.

"Okay," Severus said through Tyler's shirt. He noticed his arms just floating aimlessly in the air. He didn't want to hug Tyler back, that would be strange, but he also could just stand there. He felt the same odd pain in his chest that he had when Tyler was laughing on the floor about Lily's things. Warmth… love…? This time it felt just a smidgen closer to good, and that was frightening. He lifted his hands and slowly peeled Tyler off himself. "Come on, you should at least try to get some sleep before tomorrow. Looking like you haven't slept won't do you any favors in proving you can handle this."

Tyler grinned like a maniac at Severus, "I get Harry back tomorrow."

"Yes."

"It's going to be wonderful."

Severus turned Tyler around and pointed him toward the staircase, "Go to bed." He watched Tyler practically float up the stairs before walking to the garden and appareling back to Spinner's End.

The house was quiet and dark. He lit a lamp with his wand and walked into the dining room. He hadn't pulled out the box of information regarding werewolves since before the Ministry fiasco. It seemed unnecessary now, the truth was out and Dumbledore (and Moody to a lesser extent) were on their side. There was a twinge of worry in Severus's chest about the werewolf capture unit and Carrow's place on it, but Dumbledore had been assured by Moody that the man's memory of who Tyler was had been wiped. Tyler's status of "nonexistent" had been returned.

Severus turned toward the kitchen, but there was nothing there that he wanted. He had been munching on Tyler's stress-baked cookies and casseroles all day and he was still pleasantly full. But he couldn't sleep, nerves, and fear, and confusion rattled around from his toes to the ends of his hairs.

He needed to think. He needed to sort out what he was now. Who he was now that he was officially (though not on paper) part of the reason Harry was being returned to Tyler. He was a guardian of the child, once a month for a night and a day. He was a part of the child's life. His gut wrenched. He was a permanent part of Lily and James's child's life. He felt weak.

Severus stumbled back toward the dining room and sat down in a dining room chair before his knees could give out. What was going on? He inhaled a thick breath of air and tried to reason out his feelings.

He felt scared.

He felt responsible.

Funerals flashed before his eyes. He had failed so many Evans' and now… Tyler and Harry's faces floated to the surface like they had so many times in the past year. This was his chance, his last chance to prove himself, and if he couldn't he would lose everything. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small plastic doe Tyler had spent his bubblegum money on to cheer up his sister. The Evans' were good people. Good people who needed a protector.

He would have to learn now how to balance it, how to balance being there for Harry and Tyler and being a spy, if that was even still a possibility. He would have to be the master of Defense Against the Dark Arts, and a master of playing puppets with a toddler. It would be his greatest mission.

His greatest responsibility.

* * *

They met at eight the next morning in Tyler's living room, tea in hand and yawning. Tyler rubbed his eyes before he breathed and a radiant grin covered his face. "I get Harry back!" He cheered.

Severus motioned toward the fireplace, "Dumbledore should have reconnected your floo by now. Give it a go."

It was simple to pop over to the Headmaster's office and as soon a Tyler arrive he swung Harry out of the old Headmaster's hands and into his own embrace. "Dada" Harry cheered and clung to Tyler.

Tyler breathed him in. Felt the perfect weight in his arms, there was nothing as wonderful at the pressure of Harry's small arms around his neck. "Oh my baby," He cooed into the child's hair. "My baby. I missed you."

"Miss you," Harry mimicked back.

"Yeah. I missed you." Tyler didn't give an inch. He held Harry close and the toddler didn't seem to mind in the least.

"Is there paperwork that needs done?" Severus wondered. Tyler hadn't heard him come through the floo, but was thankful that he was there now to cut to he point, organize the menial things, so he could bundle Harry home and spend the rest of the day following him around.

"No. Not a one." Dumbledore informed them. Severus nodded and without saying another he word put a hand on Tyler's shoulder. He steered him back to the fire and helped him through.

Back at the house Tyler walked Harry into the living room and gingerly set him down, like if he put to much energy into the action the boy could shatter this reality and disappear again. Harry grinned and toddled to his pile of toys sitting next to the couch, "ditch" he insisted, picking up his favorite quaffle and a handful of quidditch figurines. He carried them back to Tyler then returned to the pile and picked up more. Tyler knelt on the floor and waited for Harry to finish excitedly showing him all his old toys.

Severus watched with relief. Things were returning to normal. After a few minutes, Harry pointed up at Severus and demanded he take one of the figuring. Severus looked around the room for something else to do, but when he found nothing he reached down and took the object. Harry grinned and turned and pointed out Tyler to him. "Daddy," he told Severus.

Tyler frowned, then stood up and wrestled Harry into his arms. He flung him under his arm and carried the giggling child over the restocked bookshelf. It didn't take him long to scan the shelves for the leather-bound book her was looking for. It was a gift from Hagrid from last Christmas that he had been too afraid to crack. Now he plucked it from the shelf and settled down with Harry on his lap.

He took a deep breath an prepared himself for what the pages would show. Despite his best efforts his eyes welled up on the first page. There, a small colored picture of Lily and James smiling at the camera greeted him. They were animated, waving, unlike the pictures along the house walls, these were magical pictures. They were almost real again. Tyler almost shut the book on instinct but kept it together. He sucked in a breath and pointed to James for Harry's benefit. "Daddy," he clarified for the toddler. Harry's small eyebrows pinched together and he twisted himself to look up at Tyler. A pudgy finger pointed at him.

"Uncle Tyler," Tyler tried.

"Uncle Moss." Severus corrected. Tyler peaked over his shoulder. Severus wasn't looking at him when he shrugged and said, "Tyler's a stupid name."

"Uncle Moss." Tyler told Harry with resignation. The toddler's finger went into his mouth, then back to the picture. A stream of baby spit smeared across the picture. "Daddy, Mommy," Tyler repeated, helping Harry point to the bespeckled man and the red headed woman in turn. He then spun Harry around and had him point at his face, "Uncle Moss. Yeah?"

"Mof," Harry repeated.

Tyler smiled and looked up at Severus, "What do you want him to call you?"

Severus shifted his weight and without any other idea he drawled, "Professor Snape would be fine."

"Uncle Sev it is!" Tyler decided, fully ignoring Severus's request.

Severus didn't bother arguing the point. It wasn't only an unwinable argument, but it was one he wasn't sure he wanted to have. For a brief moment the happy floating feeling he kept randomly having returned. Tyler took Harry's finger and pointed up at Severus, "Uncle Sev," He explained.

"Uh Se," Harry repeated poorly. Severus definitely felt the floating now. It was horrible, and pleasant, and it irritated him that he didn't have control over it.

Tyler pointed at the picture of his parents again, "Mommy, Daddy," he repeated. Harry seemed dubious, but Tyler thought it was at least a good first step. Instead of falling apart Tyler could point out his the boy's parents in a picture, explain that he wasn't "Daddy". He could give Harry an alternative name for him, "Uncle Moss", caregiver and guardian.

They played this game until Harry got tired and waddled off for his quaffle. Tyler jumped to his feet and turned to Severus who had taken up a position leaning onto the living room doorframe, "I'm cooking. You should stay for brunch."

Severus was reminded of childhood dinners at the Evans, "I shouldn't" he replied sadly. This was part of the balance. He was the bad guy. He wasn't meant to have a life or family meals.

"Severus why do you never stay for meals?" Tyler asked with indulgent exasperation.

Severus stood in the bright shine of the question, feeling off guard and shocked. He didn't have an answer. At least not one he wanted to, or even could, verbalize to Tyler.

"Stay, Uncle Sev," Tyler insisted and Severus could see in his green eyes that though he was no wizard and less of a legilimens, Tyler knew what he was thinking, "You're part of the family."

* * *

Author's Note

1) One of my crowing achievements in life is teaching my 2-year-old niece to say "ditch" (because she can't say quidditch yet.)

2) Ahh I wrote a complete part two. Yay me! Another long chapter, but there are so many things that needed wrapped up. I think I got all of them, but let me know if I'm missing something that you would like to know about. If it's not a spoiler I'll try to go back and fix it/add it or answer your question.

3) Well I guess that means next up is part three. From what I have so far- It will be less plot heavy, more of a slice of life a few years in the future, but I want something easier to write for a few months. Phew.

 **4) And most importantly: Thank you all so much for your support! (Favoriting, Following Commenting, Messaging) I've gotten some of the kindest and most supportive comments and messages during the writing of part two and it's really kept me going. You all are awesome. Hugs and Kisses.**

See you soon.


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